


Look at Me Now

by OpheliasRosemary (RinaRaizel)



Series: The Broken Moon Verse [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Minor Character Death, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:41:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1595333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RinaRaizel/pseuds/OpheliasRosemary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strange old people in caves are generally to be avoided in the fairy-tales Sakura has grown up reading. But the offer of training from one old lady in a cave in the Land of the Waves not only makes Sakura throw caution to the wind, but teaches her that power comes to those who seize it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arc I - The Old Lady in the Cave

**Chapter I: The Lady in the Cave**

* * *

The forest behind Tazuna's house in the Land of Waves was for once filled with the noise of shinobi. The lone girl, Sakura, looked down at the two boys who had yet to come close to her level. Despite the praise her sensei had given her, the young ninja could sense he had done so to rile up her teammates. Pouting slightly, she stared down and panted. She'd run up the trees several times and now her chakra felt depleted, unlike Sasuke and Naruto who made no progress but were still going.

Sakura wasn't stupid; she knew one of the reasons she had good chakra control was because her lacking chakra reserves. Her tou-san had said himself when he attempted to drill the Academy basics into her. It wasn't like Haruno Kizashi had been mean about it, just lightly honest. Honesty was something the pink-haired chuunin respected, Sakura had come to learn from being raised by her parents. Both were shinobi, but her mother had practically retired to raise Sakura and Kizashi going on missions was pretty rare. And the truth was that Sakura was steadily slipping behind. Perhaps the boys hadn't noticed the gap these past few months (they were always busy squabbling) but Sakura had since the first day. Naruto had at least attempted to fight; Sakura was out from one genjutsu.

And on the road she could do little. Her first instinct was to protect Tazuna, of course, but there had been a very distinct awareness in the back of her mind that Zabuza could slice through her as if she was nothing. All she could do was watch the backs of Sasuke and Naruto as they pulled off teamwork and freed Kakakshi. The gap was wide and Sakura already wondered how she would breach it. Every time she asked her mother to help her train, the woman shrugged and changed the subject. It really left a girl to her own devices.

That's why when Naruto came up to her asking for help, Sakura smiled on the inside. At least in this she was ahead and on top. And if she could get them to keep coming back to her, her comrades, maybe the gap would close.

* * *

Sakura had never seen poverty before. The sight of it swelled uncomfortably in her stomach as she met the gazes of hungry faces. Dirty children played in ruined in streets that looked ruined. It wasn't that Konohagakure was free of the poor, Konoha had slums of course. She had ended up lost a couple of times in the Red Light district, a couple of connected alleys, during her life. But it never really hit you in the face, like here. She'd already given a couple of sweets to some rugrat who'd begged her for some.

" **And that brat better be thankful, we don't have much left!"** chimed her inner voice in her head.

Sakura couldn't have said no to him. The uncomfortable feeling rose up into her throat and made it harder to swallow. The old man had said that the bridge was to rekindle courage in the people, but what good was courage when there were empty stomachs?

She kept that question to herself as they went along the famous Wave mangroves to Tazuna's house. Along the way something caught her eye. In the distance, on the shore, she could see something glinting in a cave partially hidden by beach rocks. Curiosity piqued, she stared until she could make out something, no, someone. A figure of silver?

"Tazuna-san?"

"Yes, Haruno-chan?" the old man asked. He was kindly to her, despite the attitude he gave Naruto. Sakura thought it probably was because she was girl and thus more approachable.

"We're almost to your house now. Do you mind if I drop you off and go, umm, scouting?"

Tazuna shrugged.

"Makes no difference to me, as long as I get home in one piece. Don't stay out too long though, girl, my daughter's making dinner." Said the old man gruffly.

Sakura nodded and quickened the pace. Within two minutes they were at the house and Sakura set her bags down and burst off back to the shore.

"Where's she going?" asked Kakashi nonchantly.

"Said something about scouting."

* * *

Sakura crept towards the cave silently, in case enemy ninjas were hiding there and she had to run to Kakashi. For all she knew this could be where Zabuza and that mask kid where hiding, though it seemed slightly too open a hiding spot for that.

"I can tell you're there. Come in."

The voice of an old woman floated out from inside the cave and Sakura swung to get a look at the speaker. A woman with very long grey hair and a formal looking kimono stared back. She didn't look that old to be honest, just the hair and the voice, but she had a refined air to her anyway. There was a small fire in the cave beside the woman, who was resting on some cushions and a futon.

Sakura turned a little red. The lady didn't seem like a ninja and Sakura was probably disturbing her. She kicked her heel in embarrassment.

"I'm so sorry Ma'am, I just saw something shiny and thought perhaps you were a ninja."

The woman had a very beautiful face, with pupil-less eyes. Sakura couldn't exactly tell what expression she was making but something in her gut said the old woman was sizing her up. So she was surprised when the lady raised her hand and gestured towards an empty cushion.

"It's alright, konouchi-san. But now that you are here, would you care to share some tea with this old woman? It is not often that I receive company."

Not wanting to be impolite, Sakura nodded and bowed to the woman before sitting on the cushion as properly as she could. The cave wasn't very pretty but the genin had a feeling that the lady was someone to be impressed, maybe just by how she spoke. For the first time she noticed that near the woman was a tea kettle with a tree painted on it, and beside that a mortar and pestle. The woman took a cup that matched the kettle and poured it for Sakura as the girl ran through the steps of traditionally tea ceremonies in her head. Things like this were taught in the academy, but Sakura had never thought she'd need them as a genin.

"Thank you." Said Sakura taking the cup with both hands and sipping. The woman simply observed her, neither smiling nor frowning.

"From where do you come from, child?"

The tea was hot and bitter and had a strange taste. Not unpleasant, thought Sakura. She set down the cup and pointed to her headband.

"Konohagakure no Sato, Hi no Kuni. I'm here on a mission with my team."

The woman drank her own tea, closing her own eyes for a second.

"Please call me Takehana. I am also a traveler to these islands with a mission of my own. Do you have a name child?"

"My name is Sakura. Haruno Sakura."

Takehana's eyes flew open and she eyed Sakura again. This time a shiver passed through the twelve-year old's frame as those shrewd and clear eyes looked her up and done. Sakura broke eye contact and drank her tea quickly, not sure what she should say the woman sizing her up.

"That is a powerful name, Sakura. Do take care of it; it speaks of many adventures ahead. But as a ninja, you already know of adventure, yes?"

Sakura shook her head.

"This is our first trip outside our village. And while something did happen earlier I don't know if it fits the mold of an adventure." Sakura paused to drink some more tea before adding quietly. "I'm lucky to be alive."

Somehow Sakura found herself loosening up with every sip of the tea. If she had been better trained she would have been very wary of the strange woman and her tea, but instead she just got more comfortable as Takehana kept asking her questions.

"Every fight is a lesson. You should say thanks that you have another day to learn from your battles. It is rare that one lives long in your profession, Sakura-san. Only the strong shine."

Once more the words spilled out of Sakura, truths she didn't feel ready to tell anyone yet but yet shared with this woman.

"I know that. But it is hard, especially when you only see the backs of your comrades." Sakura shrunk in on herself for a moment before noticing that Takehana had refilled her cup of tea. She could tell that the sun was setting outside, leaving a soft red light in the cave.

"Sakura-san, what does one do if one has the will to get ahead but not power?"

Feeling that this was a rhetorical question, Sakura just continued drinking the tea in silence, unsure of the answer herself.

"You pluck it. By force if needed be." For the first time since Sakura entered the cave, a smile entered the woman's face. It did not illuminate her features, rather just made Sakura's spine feel cold. The tea was so soothing but underneath that calming atmosphere were Sakura's instincts to leave. The woman looked harmless, just like a lost noblewoman, but why did Sakura feel so uncomfortable?

Takehana looked deep in thought.

"You see, Sakura-san, I came to this land because somehow I thought my grandsons were here. But as of yet I have not come across them. But it seems that our paths were fated to meet."

"Huh?" asked Sakura, quite confused.

"You seem to be in need of guidance and polishing. And I seem to be in need of companionship. So, young one, how about you make a deal with me? You visit me daily as your mission allows and I teach you something that might help you fight a few more battles."

That uncomfortable feeling was back and stronger. In the last minutes of sunset Takehana seemed to look almost ethereal, and the shadows on her regal-looking face started to look menacing. The fire crackled for a couple of seconds before the woman extended a hand to the young girl. Unlike her other features Takehana's nails were long and wild-looking and Sakura reluctantly took the hand and shook it.

'What harm could come from this,' thought Sakura, even though every hair on her skin was up in dread. 'She just seems lonely and if I learn something cool I could show up Naruto and Sasuke-kun!'

Sakura swore she saw a glint of fangs as the woman smiled widely.

"Then it is settled. Come tomorrow and I'll show you something."

Sakura took this as a cue for her to leave, wondering how her tea cup managed to get to Takehana's side so quickly.

"Thank you for the tea, Takehana-san." Sakura bowed before freezing after remembering something. She took a leftover wrapped sweet from her pocket, handing it to the woman. The woman palmed it, staring at it as if unsure what do with it.

"It's a sweet I had left over, from Konoha."

Takehana nodded, leaving it on her lap.

Waving goodbye, Sakura exited the cave and headed for Tazuna's house, wondering if she should mention Takehana to Kakashi-sensei. Those same instincts told her to approach him about her but Sakura just decided to keep to herself during dinner. Takehana was her secret, after all.

* * *

Takehana met her outside the cave the next day after Sakura finished with her bridge watching duties. She noticed how awfully tall, especially for an old woman, Takehana was. Her kimono was layered and looked very well-embroidered, hiding her figure well.

"You must forgive me, Sakura-san, but I will say I cannot teach you very concrete jutsu as you shinobi like to call them."

Well that ruled out Takehana as being a shinobi. But she didn't seem like a civilian either. Nevertheless, Sakura straightened her back to show she was paying attention.

Takehana paced around the girl, looking her up and down.

"You are able to walk on water, yes?"

Sakura shook her head. She had seen Zabuza and Kakashi walk on water, but she had no idea how they did so. She could hear Takehana suck her teeth.

"But you are able to walk on trees, yes?"

"Yes! I'm actually the one who managed to do that in one try." A hint of pride could be heard in Sakura's voice. The noblewoman nodded and pointed to the water outside the cave. As Sakura reached the edge, Takehana started explaining.

"It is a similar process to that but unlike the tree, which is steady and unyielding, the water flows and crashes. Temperature matters as well, but we will work with the cold waves of this land. I trust you can swim if something happens."

Sakura nodded and took a step. She lifted her foot and focused her chakra into the balls of her feet, imagining some flat surface made of chakra and then repelled the water with it. She let out a gasp as she saw that her foot met not water but something solid. A minute later Sakura was about several feet from the beach. She turned around to grin at the old woman.

"Yeah! I did it!" Sakura let out, before remembering her inside voice and covering her mouth. She gave a sheepish smile towards Takehana, who nodded. Suddenly Sakura felt her control slipping as a large wave crashed into her back. She fell into the water and swam back to shore, her earlier elation now replaced with irritation. How was she going to explain wet clothes to the others? She took Takehana's hand and pulled herself up, huffing as she squeezed her hair of water.

Takehana poked her head and pointed to ships not far from them.

"This island is under a blockade. Which means that crossing sea to get to Fire is dangerous. However, I have a mission for you. Practice around the shoreline until you can run across water. When that happens, whether today or not, I want you to make yourself as inconspicuous as possible before running across to get to the other shore and retrieving some items." She handed the pink-haired nin a small scroll.

"Those items will come in handy in our other training."

Sakura frowned, looking inside. The names of plants and their descriptions were written in very neat kanji. Takehana took the scroll back and waved her hand to show that Sakura should continue.

Being early May, the days were getting much longer and warmer, especially in the warm Land of Waves. By the last few lights of sunlight, Sakura could zip around the shoreline, and she figured out a trick to getting herself steady during incoming waves. If the waves were small, she'd steady her feet with just a tiny bit of chakra. If it was a wave of several feet, she'd pour chakra into knees as well and her lower legs would then repel the water away from her.

Naturally this took out most of her chakra, so a damp Sakura tiredly walked back to the cave. Takehana was drinking tea again, looking up after a minute.

"I trust you will be able to run across to the other side tomorrow."

Sakura nodded reluctantly. The shore of the land of fire would only be fifteen minutes away if she ran, however she felt uncomfortable at the idea of running and being caught by Gatou's men. She decided to not voice these fears to Takehana, mainly because as a ninja she should be able to deal with being captured. She hoped.

If Takehana noticed the seeds of doubt on Sakura's face, she didn't mention it, just gesturing to another cup full of tea. Sakura noticed the smell was different this time and that the mortar and pestle had been recently used.

"It's a brew I made to help regain strength. You should drink it before you collapse, Sakura-san."

Sakura smelled it curiously before drinking it. The taste was bitterer than yesterday, but with a sweet aftertaste. After a couple of sips she felt a little more alert than before in regards to her chakra.

"Takehana-san? Does this replenish chakra?"

"Ah, you've noticed. Only a little. My teas are quite special."

Sakura looked into Takehana's clear eyes, once more noting how the woman felt dangerous. Though from their training, the young genin felt that the woman didn't wish to harm her and, unlike Kakashi-sensei, actually gave her personal training. By the time she finished her cup, Sakura felt some of her chakra return and her body felt less store.

"That's why I am going to teach you some of my mixtures."

Sakura felt herself sweatdrop. Teach her to make teas?

' **We don't have time for things like that. I wanna kick some ass!'**

' _Be quiet Inner.'_

"Ah, but my brews are special, as I have said. Imagine if you are out of chakra, nearing exhaustion, and need to get out of a tricky situation. A few sips from a flask of the tea you have just drank and you'll be back on your feet in no time. Don't underestimate non-traditional shinobi arts, Sakura-san. I could show you how to make balms that will heal scars, undetectable poisons that can take out an enemy camp. In fact, that's why I need those herbs."

Sakura opened her mouth in awe.

"Those plants…they can do that? And you're going to teach me that?"

Sakura never really considered following into poisons, or medical jutsu. Though she knew had the control for it, iryojutsu always seemed too complicated, too much of a support. The medic-nin she'd encountered in her life were almost certainly confined to the hospital. Combat medics were rare. Sakura, with the little thought she'd ever put into her future as a konouchi, wasn't sure what her exact career path.

Takehana had begun pouring the tea into a bottle. The character for "bamboo" was stamped on it. She wordlessly handed the bottle and scroll to Sakura.

"I will if you'll learn, child. Make sure to eat and rest up for your task tomorrow, Sakura-san. You'll need your head if you want to get through the blockade unnoticed."

"Hai, Takehana-san."

* * *

"Why do you guys have to make even _eating_ a competition?" Sakura yelled at her retching teammates, who kept asking for more food.

"Must..train." said Sasuke in between large bites of food.

"Must beat Teme." answered Naruto, though seeing him eat with such great gusto and absolute lack of manners was less surprising than watching Sasuke eat.

'These two idiots!' huffed Inner.

'Yeah,' thought Sakura. 'But they're my idiot teammates.'

"Ah, Tsunami-san? May I please have another portion?" asked Sakura, raising her bowl. Kakakshi stared at her with an amused expression.

* * *

After Naruto stormed off to go train, with Sasuke following close behind, Sakura looked intently at Kakashi. After hearing the story about Kaiza that Tazuna had told, her doubts about being able to make it to the shore she looked at her empty plate she wondered if there was something she could do to conceal herself. Her dress and hair were not the best things for a misty-

"That's it!" squeaked Sakura out loud before clamping a hand to her mouth in embarrassment.

' _He had his Sharingan on, right? That means he could have copied that Mist technique and that means he can teach it to us, well, me. I can use that to hide myself as I go across the water.'_

Kakashi looked up from his porn.

"What is it, Sakura?"

"Oh..umm. Hey Kakashi-sensei, you think you can teach me a technique? You know, since I'm beyond tree-walking." Kakashi closed his book in thought, looking at her. Sakura widened her eyes a little, to help the descision along.

' **Ha, no one can resist Sakura's Wide Green Eyes of Adorable!'**

"Maa, of course. Le-"

"Ah, so you'll show me the Hidden Mist Technique, right, Sensei?" Sakura grinned at her teacher whose lone eye looked a little exasperated. He stood up, firmly walking on his crutches and motioned for her to follow him. It was dark already and the sounds of Sasuke and Naruto doing night training could be heard in the distance as they reached a small creek near Tazuna's house.

"Now, tell me, Sakura-chan, why do you want to learn something like this?"

"Well, you see, Sensei, during the fight I noticed how well the mist hid Zabuza and how useful it would be to remain undetected. So I thought that perhaps if I learn it I can have the element of surprise on my side or I can hide in places with water." Which was true, per se. Sakura wasn't lying about how useful or what she would be using the technique for. She looked in to Kakashi's eyes to see if he bought it.

"Alright. That's some good uses for the technique. I have a few more you might be interested in. You see, it's lucky that Zabuza hadn't gone up against a Sharingan-user before because otherwise he would have seen that my eye doesn't do well against his mist. Do you know why that is?"

Sakura tapped her foot and thought back. That was the first technique the Mist-nin had used. There was an incredible amount of chakra around him and then the chakra turned into mist, dispersing killing intent all around them.

"I've got it. It's because your Sharingan can generally only follow chakra and since the mist is the user's chakra, you can't distinguish the user from the outward chakra."

Kakashi's visible eye crinkled upwards.

"That's why you're the top-ranked Konouchi in your class. Yep. Though other doujutsu like the Byakugan would be able to spot him. But as you can see, it is a very deadly technique." He adjusted his crutch and made a seal with his hands.

"The only seal is the tiger seal, so hand seal-wise, it is not difficult. The difficulty you'll have is getting it to work. Now, since you're the brainy-type, I'll explain the concept behind this technique so you know how to use it. Ever heard of Chakra transformation?"

Sakura shook her head.

"When breaking down techniques, there are two processes to creating them. One is chakra shaping and the other is Nature Transformation. Usually when combining the two you can create your own jutsu. Luckily Kirigakure no Jutsu works without Nature transformations if you have water, or else I wouldn't be able to teach you that technique."

' _I've got to look up Nature Transformations when I get home.'_

Sakura stored the information for later. She knew that ninjutsu of higher levels generally followed an elemental release; but she didn't exactly know the theory behind it. Considering the fact mist came from water, she could guess that the Hidden Mist jutsu was a Suiton or Water Release. But Kakashi had said she wouldn't need an understanding of the elements to perform the jutsu. She looked into her sensei's eye quizzically.

"Let's see if your chakra control is good enough for this. Release some."

She made the tiger seal and let out good portion of the chakra she had left. The familiar feeling of her own chakra surrounded her as she opened her eyes again to look at her sensei. Even in crutches he looked so cool, so laid back. He lazily pointed to the water and Sakura began trying to move her chakra to the water. She focused on a image in her mind of carrying the water with her chakra and within a couple of seconds she could feel water whirling around her with her chakra. Smirking at being able to do this so quick she focused on making the chakra-laced water mist around her. Her teacher's surprised eye was the last thing she saw before the mist obstructed her view of him.

"Sakura, try spreading it out."

It took several minutes to do so. Though she didn't need to add chakra to the mist, she instantly knew how much the jutsu needed; spreading her chakra out took more focus than drawing up the chakra from her admittedly small pool of it. By the time she got the thin layer of mist to spread around her a little more her head was aching.

Kakashi clapped his hands together twice, though the sound sounded as blank as his expression. Sakura dispersed the jutsu, rubbing her head from the headache it left her.

"Focusing that much was hard, huh?"

Sakura nodded. She could wasn't sure how many more she could do of those without falling to mental exhaustion. Especially since she was supposed to try and attempt it tomorrow along with running across a large body of water. She hid the urge to yawn and looked at her sensei again.

"Okay, let's try it a couple of times, hopefully your have enough chakra to manage it more." And then he went off to sit on a large log, his crutch resting while absentmindedly flipped through Icha Icha. Sakura's aptitude was pretty surprising. From the stats he received from Iruka he knew of her chakra control being exceptionally well. Exceptionally good chakra control was generally the sign of below average or untapped reserves, though sometimes it came naturally.

It wasn't her prowess with the technique that gave Kakashi pause; it was that she actually asked for help. Generally gennin who passed the exam are self-sufficient to some extent. Many are clan brats and have their families' techniques to help them out. Naruto was an example of a non-ninja raised conscript. More peculiarly, Sakura was raised into a family of ninjas who didn't seem like wanting to train her. Kakashi only briefly knew Kizashi and Mebuki, they were of Minato-sensei's generation. Kizashi was a chunin and he couldn't really remember anything remarkable about the man's skills. And as for Mebuki, well, she retired.

"Hai, sensei." Her cheery but strained voice rang out as she tried the Mist technique a couple of times. Occasionally she would sneak a peek at her reading sensei, looking for some reaction. After an hour her chakra was near depleted and Sakura could feel the edges of chakra exhaustion. But that effort had been rewarded with a less concentrated mist, one that was a little more spread out and could cover her actions as well as the surrounding area. It was far from perfect and Sakura had no idea how she would keep it up and make her way across the water.

"You look pretty done for tonight. We should get home before you pass out."

Sakura nodded and stretched herself. Kakashi was already en route back to house on his crutches and she walked behind him. Something about this trip was dong her good. Maybe it was the unexpected train from both a stranger and her actual sensei, but Sakura could feel content about her actions that day. It wasn't a normal feeling, coming home to rest knowing you have accomplished something, but it was than Sakura thought to be one she likes.

Right before she was to enter the room she got to herself (she couldn't share with Naruto or Sasuke), her two teammates came back in from after dinner training. The two parts of Team 7 looked at each other, noting how exhausted each other member looked and nodded in acknowledgement of each other for that day's work. Sakura fell asleep to the image of approving glances from her teacher and teammates and a content feeling in her chest.

* * *


	2. Arc I - The Lady's Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sakura finds she may be a little over her head because Takehana wants her to bring someone's head to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 Word Length: 5,428
> 
> AN: Hello! Well this is the next chapter. I thought it was getting too long so I decided to cut it a little, so Chapter 3 is basically half-written and you can expect the next chapter in the next week or so. This chapter is a little heavy on the plot so I suggest being careful with reading it. I will say that a bit of Takehana's agenda will be shown in this chapter. I would like to thank those who reviewed, followed, and favorite. I'm glad this story is liked. As always, I'll add more notes on the bottom, but before I leave you to the story, I would like recommend a few songs for this chapter.
> 
> For the scene between Sakura and Sasuke, **"Come a Little Closer"** by Ambassadeurs. Any infiltration scene is **"Nightshift"** by Force of Nature. Two other songs that just go with the feeling for this chapter are **"Peace of Youth"** by Ambassadeurs and **"Night 10"** by Ta-Ku, off his "25 Nights for Nujabes" album (which is writing fuel and a must for any fans of Nujabes/Samurai Champloo)
> 
> * * *

**Chapter II: The Lady's Mission**

* * *

Sakura figured out a little way to cheat. Tucking the instruction scroll in a pocket attached to her leggings, she looked over the edge of the bridge. Even on the third day of training nothing had really happened, if Zabuza was alive he was definitely recuperating somewhere. That relieved her. As the only able-bodied member of Team 7 who wasn't currently stuck on climbing some tree, Tazuna's fate was in her hands. And Sakura knew that wasn't good chances for the bridge builder.

Said bridge builder gave her a glance as the ninja looked straight down.

"You know you might fall, don'tcha?"

Sakura gave him a simple smile.

"I'm a capable ninja. I'm just checking for enemy-nin." Lies, but he didn't know that. She hopped back to the stable parts of the bridge and looked over to the other side. The bridge was only half-completed. This gave her a serious advantage. Tree-walking and stone walking were easier due to the consistency of the material. If she merely walked down the side of the pier holding the furthest part of the bridge she'd be able to cut her water-walking distance considerably.

It wasn't exactly what Takehana probably had in mind but that was the way of the ninja. Think underneath the underneath and all that.

The other thing that was working in Sakura's favor was that it was very misty today. So much that she feared assassins from Gato but the day had progressed without any incident of course.

"Hey, kunoichi, I'm ready to go home."

Soon Sakura was back on the bridge, looking down. Breathing deeply she applied chakra to her feet as she stood on uncovered iron bar and held out her hand arms for balance. She hopped down several bars as she had seen ninja do in the village with tree branches and eventually found herself balancing on the water. Sakura clasped her hands in the Tiger seal.

" _Kirigakure no Jutsu_!"

A subtle layer of mist to complement the environment wafted around her. Surprisingly her water-walking had not suffered from this. Sakura took a deep breath and sped off. Her feet barely touched the water but she knew she was getting closer. As she ran she put more effort into each step to propel her further and ending basically sliding her feet along the water, as if she was skating. Sakura put this discovery out of her mind for now as she focused on getting out of water. If she felt that the mist around her was too thin she would push a small amount of chakra to grab the mist around her to better shroud her path.

Her foot met ground.

Ecstatic, Sakura looked back at the Land of the Waves, completely shrouded in Mist.

' **Yeah! We did it!' chanted Inner.**

Sakura just gave the air an elated punch for getting this far and took the scroll out.

"Okay, let's start with the barks."

* * *

"Got it! Looks like the _machin_ is done." Sakura murmured to herself as she cut down the last of the fruit she needed.

It didn't look like Sakura would make it back to Tazuna's in time for dinner. Hopefully Kakashi wasn't too worried. The last of the plant matter the woman in the cave asked her to get was in her little satchel and so Sakura sped off, this time skating across the water without bothering to make a Kirigakure no Jutsu until she got closer to the bridge.

She all but skipped in the cave, smiling and dispelling the technique. Takehana cocked her head at the technique.

"Just learned it." Sakura grinned, setting down her satchel. It was dark and cold out, but Takehana was roasting something in the cave. Sakura looked down at the roasting rabbit with hungry eyes, which was noticed by the other woman.

"Please join me for a meal."

Sakura bowed and took her seat on one of the cushions. Strangely enough, Takehana passed her a paper plate and piled on a rice cake she hadn't even noticed. The woman's features were softened by the dull fire.

"I trust you were successful."

"Yes Takehana-san. I got across the water and covered myself with a technique I learned from my sensei. Gathering what you asked was easy once I got there."

Takehana was silent as she took the rabbit off the fire, taking a pretty but old-looking kaiken from her kimono sleeve. Sakura's eyes sparkled at the knife; generally noblewomen hid those in their kimonos. Deadly and pretty, kaiken were a form of tanto that were very good for self-defense, close-range killing, and from what she heard of stories, suicide. Takehana noticed her looks at the knife and turned so Sakura could see it.

"Family heirloom."

"Ah."

It was on the tip of Sakura's tongue to ask the woman where her family was and whether she found her grandsons, or why she staying in a cave when her kimono looked nice enough to buy the Land of the Waves but something told her that Takehana wouldn't take nicely to any of those questions, or at least not yet. Careful examination of her cutting the rabbit into pieces told Sakura that whatever her origin, Takehana had used that kaiken often.

Quickly muttering an itadakimasu, Sakura dug into the rice cakes and rabbit, feeling very hungry after the mission she just completed. Takehana merely took small bites of her food before clapping her hands on her lap to get her dinner companion's attention. Sakura looked up immediately.

"Sakura, what do I intend to teach you with the things you collected?"

Sakura stopped eating for a second before reciting with perfect memory.

"Well I got willow bark, so something to take care of headaches and fevers. You had me get _machin_ and _torikabuto_ because those are commonly found deadly poisons-"

"You'll be specifically using the Machin." Takehana cut her off.

Sakura looked a little perplexed. Machin was a poison but sometimes used in medicine. But it was quite deadly, first appearing to give the victim constipation and then the runs. Three hours later the machin would cause severe muscle convulsions and eventually cause foaming at the mouth as the person asphyxiated. A nasty, dramatic death. Not that subtle but because Machin was found so readily in these parts, easy to get, and to make.

"I will teach you how to brew these two poisons and some relievers. Perhaps an antidote, though I feel you should learn how to make those on your own. But before I do so, I must ask you, how much are you willing to do?"

Sakura blinked.

"Well," Sakura began, "I already said I'm going to learn what you wish to teach me, so please be sure that I'll do what yo-"

"Sakura," Takehana cut her off. "You're going to need to kill a man for me."

Sakura's eyes widened. She wasn't sure what to answer the woman with. Inside Sakura was a girl who wanted to be noticed, to be seen as having potential. That little girl sent looks at Sasuke, felt devastated when her parents refused to train or talk about Shinobi life with her, and felt ecstasy when Kakashi ruffled her hair in praise. That girl was what Sakura had thought of when she accepted the strange woman's training.

But killing? She was a ninja, but killing someone had been so far from her mind when she accepted this woman's training, when she put her forehead protector on, too. Killing someone seemed distant, a problem that Sakura would never deal with. There was a night a couple of weeks after she graduated where her Mother, of all people, had tried to sit down with her and explain to her the perils of being a kunoichi but Sakura just took as her mother nagging her about quitting again (they were often fighting anyway).

It was no surprise how frightened she had felt when they encountered the ninja, first the two with the chain and then Zabuza. Her first instinct, besides running away, was to protect the charge, that much had been drilled into her by the Academy. But she had been so aware of her mortality at the moment, just the feeling of that battle made her breath hitch. Ninja were to kill or be killed, but Sakura felt so strange about claiming a life, especially since it wasn't ordered.

"You haven't killed before."

It wasn't a question and Sakura did not look up from her food.

"I am not here to reassure you that killing will be easy or that it will be hard. But sometimes lives need to be taken. Rest assured the man I want to kill is not an ally of yours. It will be done covertly and in a way none of your team will get suspicious. And by killing this person, you might be saving many lives, including that of your teammates'."

Sakura's head snapped to look at Takehana in shock. Did she mean Zabuza?

"Who are you talking about?"

Takehana stared out of the cave and at a ship in the distance. She pointed to it.

"The man responsible for the blockade and the continued suffering of this land. Our target is there. We have three days until we strike, though you shall being doing the work. His defense is made up of criminals with little skill, except two waylaid shinobi who his despicable presence alienates. You will sneak on board and poison him with machin, killing him in a way that will be written off as a business competitor killing or perhaps the work of two disgruntled nukenin. Then the ports will open, allowing the people of this land to rebuild their villages and their lives."

Sakura's mouth was left open. Gato. This old woman wanted her to infiltrate a ship and kill one of the wealthiest people in the world. Her. Not Sasuke, not Kakashi-sensei, not anyone who was a capable ninja. Her, weak Sakura Haruno, a rookie ninja whose only accomplishments were being good on paper.

"Takehana-san, I think you're putting the hopes on the wrong shino-"

"Do not speak!"

As if controlled, Sakura's mouth clamped up.

"I decided to train because you acknowledged you were lacking. Because you had the desire to be better. Those who want power need merely seek it and will be granted. Those who doubt and do not bother remain where they are for the rest of their lives. Gato is vile and long overdue for such a fate. The only question that remains is whether you are going to play a hand in it."

Sakura didn't speak. There, as she suspected before, was something downright frightening about this old woman. Even her wizened voice sounded ethereal when she was angry. The fire which had softened features now illuminated a frightening shadow on the wall and glinted off sharp nails. Even more frightening was the zeal with which the woman had spoken of power. It was wistful, as if she was telling tales of her past. Sakura wasn't sure how describe the look in the woman's golden eyes, which were now boring holes into her skin with their stare.

"Well, girl? Will you?"

Sakura looked down at her hands and remembered the face of the child that asked her for candy. She remembered the look on Tsunami's face as Tazuna described Kaiza's execution, her husband. The fear that man who quit his job on the bridge had in his eyes. Gato was a terrible man. But was she ready to do something like kill a man?

' **You're forgetting that he's gonna try to get you killed too, along with Sasuke-kun, Naruto, and Kakashi.'**

Sakura didn't always want to agree with her inner voice. But this is one of the few times where there was sound agreement. She was a ninja of the Leaf and this is what her mother had tried to explain to her when she had been too foolish to listen. As frightening as her temporary teacher was, at least Takehana was offering her a chance to do this. Kakashi, she sadly realized, would never allow his students to take care of this problem as easily the old woman wanted to. Maybe if Gato died soon enough, a fight could be avoided between Zabuza and her team.

Her fists tightened. A ninja must never show emotions but why did she want to cry?

"I'll do it. But I won't kill anyone else if I can help it."

The teeth in Takehana's mouth looked too sharp as she smiled and told Sakura her tasks to dwell upon at home.

* * *

"Where were you? You missed dinner."

Sakura sighed at her sensei sleepily. For someone so aloof he sure was interested in what she was doing. The urge to tell him about Takehana was there, but somehow the words felt thick in her mouth. So she shrugged her shoulders and told him she was practicing a new technique.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow and gestured for her to perform it.

"I'm too tired sensei."

"Maa, maa, I'm sure you can do it."

Sakura sighed again before walking back to the creek she had train on yesterday. This time she walked on the water, noting how Kakashi closed his book in shock. Pushing her foot in the same motion she had done earlier that day, she basically skated around the creek, even spinning just for kicks, as she would on ice. After a few minutes of showing it off, she hopped back on land and patted her sore legs.

"Sakura?"

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Remind me to teach your nature transformation once we get back. Don't take no for an answer either."

' _Yes, sensei.'_ She thought. ' _I won't._ '

* * *

Sakura got up early the next morning, leaving a note for Kakashi and Tazuna that she was going to be practicing her techniques in various parts of the island. Takehana had told that she didn't need to be combat-skilled for this mission, just figure out how to disguise herself properly and train in stealth. All that took was a simple _Henge_. For around thirty minutes Sakura disguised herself as an old man beggar, unnoticed by most.

Takehana told her to meet her after her job was done in the village, but for now Sakura practiced. Eventually she moved her old man body to a part of the closed of docks where Tazuna had pointed out Gato's henchmen. Stumbling on the place gave her an idea, though a dangerous one. She'd already learned how to gather intelligence from some D-rank missions so this wasn't that far out from her league.

'Doesn't mean I can't wish this didn't smell so bad.' Thought Sakura as her disguised hands ruffled through a stinking rubbish heap of rotten fish and broken bottles. As expected, the two rough-looking guys nearby didn't pay the old homeless man any attention and just continued loudly arguing.

"No, I'm telling you, it was definitely one of those ninja Gato hired. The smaller one with the mask." Sakura almost gasped from that. So the hunter-nin who took down Zabuza _was_ working with him. That meant Zabuza was alive!

"Nonsense, why would they break Gato's wrist? He hired them."

"You can't tell with rogue ninja-types, idiot. Especially the one with the sword. I heard he tried to kill his own leader before leaving."

"Well, shit. I hope Gato gets rid of 'em soon, shinobi give me the creeps." The man who said this looked around as if a shinobi might pop up behind him. Sakura resisted the urge to smirk. There should be a ninja rule stating underlings are freaking stupid somewhere. She made herself release a few pained groans, the sound of not finding anything interesting in the rubbish, catching the attention of the guards.

"Hey, old man, get the fuck outta here!" The man who said this had a huge bat with pointy things sticking out of it. He swung it threateningly at the homeless man and Sakura hobbled away the best she could from the area. Really, while she was glad that she avoided the pointy things, the urge to go back there and laugh at how dumb they were was too strong.

She dropped the henge after a few good minutes and patted herself for a job well done. Good intelligence she could share with both Takehana and Kakashi, intelligence that she had gotten using Academy-level techniques. She washed her hands before coming, congratulating herself on getting there before Tazuna.

* * *

She didn't go to Takehana's straight away, instead deciding to clue Kakashi in first. Even though he was pointedly ignoring her in favor of reading his book.

' **Asshole! I've been trying to talk to him for two minutes! Just punch him; he can't dodge it while he's injured.'**

Sakura didn't think punching him in the face was one of the acceptable interactions between teacher and student outside of spars. So she resorted to poking him in the shoulder.

"Kakashi-sensei, I have something reeeeeaaaally important to tell youuuuuu." She whined.

"Is it more important than Junko realizing that the strange woman sitting next to her in the onsen is extremely attractive?" he asked, flipping another page.

"No- wait, what?" Sakura turned red at what she just heard. Kakashi kept on reading, not even looking at his student. Sakura sighed. She was pretty sure Junko or whoever was more interesting to listen to than her flat-chested genin self but this was bordering on insane. And if she wasted more time talking to Kakashi, Takehana would be mad.

"Okay, sensei, I was eavesdropping on two men who work for Gato near the docks today and they mentioned that Gato's wrist was broken by two rogue ninjas he had hired. Oh and Gato wants to get rid of them. Have fun reading your smut."

And with that, Sakura left, leaving Kakashi to the wonders of same-sex attraction in hot springs.

"Maa, maa, of course I wil- wait, _what_?"

Sakura could hear Inner howling with laughter.

* * *

"So Gato is injured and will eventually dispose of his hired ninja? Zabuza is alive and that hunter-nin is working for him and he broke Gato's wrist?"

"Yep."

"Excellent work, Sakura." Takehana said while pouring tea into her cup.

They were to be there only briefly today. Takehana was to take her around the village for some reconnaissance and tomorrow they would work on making the poisons work. Sakura took the cup and shook it gently, watching the tea leaves swirl in a spiral. The intense Takehana of last night had been replaced by a serene one.

She had already filled on the woman on the details of the fight between her sensei and the nukenin. There seemed to be a flicker of interest on the woman's face as she described the Sharingan and her two teammates. Sakura almost thought the woman was chuckling when she told her of the accidental kiss the two shared during team assignments.

It was very weird, given the intensity of yesterday and sober task ahead of her that today felt like such a light-hearted day. The only time Takehana had given Sakura a fright was when they set out to stake out the ship Gato lived on and Sakura saw Takehana do a _henge_ without handseals. Sakura immediately started asking questions about that which were shut down with Takehana admitting that only she could that skill. It did add to the list of questions Sakura had about the woman, though. If she wasn't a shinobi, how could she _henge_?

"That's the ship." Takehana disguised herself as a younger woman, though a very shabbily dressed poor one. Sakura looked like an eight-year with tattered clothing. Sakura quickly assessed the guard on the ship. While most of the people looked like non-shinobi bandits, it didn't mean they wouldn't be hard to bypass when killing Gato.

"The problem with shinobi," Takehana told her, "is that they are too noticeable for what they claim to do. This can be done with a small maid pouring an unnoticeable poison into her master's food or drink and then slipping away before anyone noticed. Poisons can be very dramatic and can also be very unnoticeable, only wreaking havoc months after ingestion. You do not need complicated techniques to kill a person, but you need them to battle one."

Sakura had never heard the distinction between the two made. She supposed Takehana was right. She had noticed during the fight that Zabuza had several chances to kill them quickly and without a fuss. But he didn't take them, preferring to battle them outright. And while the battle-style fit her romantic notions of ninja life more, the practical part of Sakura felt that the sneaky, secretive techniques were more befitting a shinobi when they wanted to get the job done.

Both women had noticed that the ship was mainly frequented by a few groups of people; mercenaries, prostitutes, and servers. Sakura outright refused to disguise herself as a prostitute because that was something she was not ready for. Mercenaries wouldn't be able to get to Gato. A simple servant girl would be the best path to take out the man.

"Try it out for a few minutes."

Sakura stared at Takehana in confusion. They were not too close to the ship, but close enough that they could see the boards that let people on board.

"You've seen what the cleaning girls who go on board where. _Henge_ and scrub the floors for thirty minutes. Map out what you can." Sakura was about to open her mouth to say that no, she was not ready to take this much of a risk but the memory of how Takehana had told her off last night was fresh. She made the seal for _henge_ and out popped a plain, slightly chubby teen girl. Takehana waved her off and Sakura approached the docks.

"Ah, you must be one of the nightshift cleaning girls. Go on ahead." said the burly man who was guarding the entrance. Sakura's stomach developed butterflies as she boarded the ship. If she got caught she could be in so much trouble. Part of her wondered if she could ever share this adventure with Sasuke-kun and Naruto. Surely her infiltrations were cool (though she knew the boys like flashy bang-bang battles more than disguised kunoichi scrubbing floors in enemy territory for thirty minutes).

Upon boarding some strict matronly type of woman yelled at her for being late and told her to go wash the bathroom. Sakura's nose crinkled at the chore considering she hated doing things like this at home, why did she have to do it on missions? But as she passed corridor after corridor, the layout of the ship became clearer. Gato's suite was, thankfully near the edges of the ship and not submerged in water. According to the directions the head cleaning woman had given her Gato's suites were large enough to touch two porthole windows and three large clear windows, allowing her that option of entrance if she wanted. Sakura made sure to ask Kakashi later if the tree climbing exercise could be done with hands.

Soon the toilet bowl in one bathroom had been cleaned and Sakura took advantage of an open window to escape and hide herself with _Kirigakure no Justu_.

* * *

What Sakura hadn't counted on was being questioned publicly by Kakashi-sensei at dinner. Blushing, Sakura admitted that she was training to sharpen her skills and realized that since Gato was gunning for Tazuna, she thought that perhaps they could find out when they'd be attacked next. Kakashi's expression was unreadable but Naruto's whoops of "Sakura-chan's so cool!" were enough to make her smile at her dinner of roasted fish.

"Sensei, heeey, sensei. You think Sasuke and I can go do some reconséance? Can we? Can we?"

"Dobe, it's called reconnaissance." Sasuke added, looking down at his food. Sakura couldn't tell what he thought of her escapades but it was his approval she wanted more than anything. But the normally stoic boy didn't seem to care and just grunted when she offered to show them to the area where the underlings could be found.

"Ah, but Sasuke and you haven't seemed to make it on top of your trees yet."

"Aww, come on." groaned Naruto, leaning back with his head on his hands. He gave Sasuke a shifty look while Sasuke smirked at him. Sakura frowned at this. Of course in an outside mission people would grow closer, but she had been so busy with her secret training sessions that it took only a few days for her to feel left out. Angry at being left out again, she accidentally snapped her chopsticks.

Sighing, Sakura thanked Tsunami for the meal and left the table early. Perhaps she could do some training exercise before bed.

Kakashi's eye followed his strange little genin as she left the room. They say it took a c-rank for you to truly grasp your students and his were an odder bunch than he thought. Sakura's strategic thinking was of notable interest to him, apparently her profile hadn't lied in that aspect either.

But he could see the girl's frustration. She wasn't as good at fighting as the other two, but hell, it looked like she was trying. He also noticed that she hadn't yet disturbed Sasuke by asking him on date, which was good, since that meant that most her focus was somewhere else. But it wasn't like he hadn't noticed the jealous looks she had shot Naruto and Sasuke. Apparently by singling her out from them, he'd made a little gap between his one female student and his two boys.

Kakashi sighed and closed his book. Some teamwork exercises were needed. Preferably on Sasuke's part, Naruto was usually more than willing to do anything with Sakura. Plus, he needed to focus on the fact that Zabuza and his hunter-nin were still alive and apparently angry with their employer.

"Sasuke, take a break from tree-climbing tonight and see if you help Sakura with her aim." Two intensely black eyes were glaring at him. Kakashi merely avoided the Uchiha's gaze and looked back at his book. After five minutes Sasuke gave up and went outside.

* * *

Sasuke left the house to find Sakura attempting to climb the trees with her hands.

"What are you doing?"

Sakura hadn't heard him come up and slid down.

"Oww!"

No, Sakura was not going to rub her butt in pain in front of Sasuke. She'd sooner die of embarrassment. Sasuke looked annoyed.

"Hey, Sasuke-kun. I was just curious to see if we can stick to the trees the same way with hands."

Sakura found that while it was possible, it was really hard. For one thing, she couldn't raise her hand while climbing, leaving her to mimic the motions of a climbing lizard. When she did raise her hand and apply chakra to stick to it again, it caused the bark to crack and the tree to go inwards. Now that was exciting in itself because that meant that more chakra in her hands meant more force, but that wasn't what she needed now. Of course, chakra-enhanced punches were very useful and Sakura couldn't wait to try them out, but once again, not useful in this case. Sasuke wasn't sure of what to really make of how excited his teammate looked at the idea of trying to climb trees differently than the already sufficient way she already had.

"Why?"

Sakura shrugged.

"It's just interesting to see how it works. Feet are hard to get chakra into. Hands are easier but harder to maneuver. I guess I like chakra control." Sasuke stared at her for a second.

"Hn."

It was at this point that Sakura realized that she was alone with Sasuke and actually having a conversation with him that didn't involve her asking him for a date only to be rejected, him calling her useless, or mission details. A blush spread immediately on her face. Whether Sasuke noticed her face in the dark or not didn't matter because he broke her out of her stupor anyway.

"Sensei wants me to help you improve your aim."

"Oh."

Sakura's happiness deflated a bit. While spending time with Sasuke was nice, it would have been nicer if he came to her because he wanted to, not because Kakashi ordered him too. The few times she had "caught up" with Ino, which was more bickering than catching up, Ino had mentioned their many "team things" and Sakura felt jealous. The frequent barbeque dinners, the earrings, all of this made Sakura jealous. What did Team 7 do together outside of sessions?

Nothing, except occasionally plot to unmask Kakashi.

The blush didn't go away as Sasuke handed her some shuriken and walked with her to a part of the forest where trees surrounded them completely.

Sasuke took out seven kunai and gestured to the five trees surrounding them in a ring. Sakura's eyebrows raised as looked at him preparing to do something. A gasp left her lips as he jumped up high and let five kunai in the air. Three headed for the direction of their respective trees but two were off course until Sasuke turned and sent two more kunai at them, knocking their trajectory and making sure the kunai were able to reach spots behind him as well. The glinting of flying kunai in the night sky was beautiful and Sakura's mouth opened in wonder.

"Sasuke-kun," she whispered to him, "That was so cool." Sasuke didn't say anything to her as he landed on the ground, eyes showing his mind somewhere distant. His fist tightened suddenly and Sakura looked away, unsure of what to do. There were times when Sasuke seemed unfocused and spaced out, but they were rare. Sakura had only noticed those times because she had been so attentive to Sasuke and she always felt that like his mind, his heart was somewhere else and not with the world.

Settling for leaving Sasuke to his demons, if he had any, Sakura decided to try the shurikenjutsu he had just performed. It was pretty amazing to have watched that but Sakura was sure it was more of a demonstration than anything. It wouldn't hurt to try. She knew her aim wasn't the, generally because she had slower reflexes.

Sakura took out seven kunai from her pouch and jumped in the air as well, sending five kunai flying around her. Within a few seconds she let two fly from her hands. One missed the kunai it was intended for entirely and the other only knocked the kunai off the path slightly, missing the tree. Sakura grimaced. She didn't expect to get the technique right on the first try but it seemed sad to her that even the straight forward kunai hadn't been dead on.

"You're slow and take too long to react to things." Sasuke said, startling her. His hands were in his pockets as he came up to the trees to take back his kunai. Sakura nodded, grimace turning into a frown. Sasuke was right about that. How foolish it must have been to want some approval from her crush when her aim was this bad. She peeked out at him through the curtains of her bangs.

"We should sharpen your reflexes." The boy positioned the kunai through the creases of his fingers, letting them fly from his hands instantly. Sakura did a cartwheel to the side to dodge them, but Sasuke kept projectiles coming.

Sometime later, Sakura was sitting on the floor, cuts and scrapes on her. Regardless of the damage, she wore a small grin as she looked up at Sasuke, not as winded as her but noticeably tired. Eventually she had begun sending kunai and shuriken back at her teammate when he was open between throws. This led to a more intense session of training, with both running out of pointy things to throw at each other. Sasuke had grabbed a kunai from the ground and ran at her. While she managed to mostly get out of Sasuke and his kunai's way, the other genin was too skilled and too finely trained to not hit her.

And that's how Sakura ended up exhausted on the ground with a split lip. But Sasuke was sporting a bruise or two as well, once it turned into an impromptu sparring session.

Sasuke looked at her for a second before walking up to Sakura and offering her a hand up. She took it without hesitation; a little stunned he had done that. Inner was doing some war dance of "he's mine!" in her head, but all Sakura could think of was that Sasuke had been kind to _her_.

"Thanks." She grinned at him, split lip and eyes creasing. When she opened them she saw that Sasuke was already walking away. An exhausted but happy Sakura caught up to him.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Notes Part 2:**
> 
> I have a couple things I could have added to this chapter but they were, well, too large. So next chapter, as a sneak peek, you'll see an actual fight scene. Of course it'll be a spar, but we'll be able to see Sakura use her brain and few new skills in combat. Exciting, yeah?
> 
> So a couple of things to note before I go on explaining some things in this chapter.
> 
> 1\. Kunoichi in Naruto are definitely used for infiltration more than combat. Whether that's just some latent sexism in the world or not, it's still a given that female ninja aren't expected to be combat monsters. Looking at people like Mei and, heck, Tsunade, we know this isn't really true, you know, except for the fact that the supposed main female character in the manga was sort of just forgotten about by Kishimoto and once in a while he's like, _oh, wait, Sakura exists._ Never mind that, but yeah, Sakura is going to be making use of that in the future, especially when it comes to things that could be solved easily without needless battles.
> 
> 2\. Machin is a poison and well known and sometimes used in herbal Asian medicine. However, it would usually grow in places like Southern China and India because it needs a warmer climate. Considering that the Wave has mangroves that generally don't grow in Japan because of climate reasons, it stands to reason that the Land of the Waves has a warmer climate than the mainland and thus things like _Nux Vomica,_ also known the Strychnine tree would grow there. Strychnine poisoning is one of the most painful poisons, and very much "dramatic" in how it kills someone. Takehana obviously wants to make a statement. The _torikabuto_ mentioned in this chapter is another very known poison named Aconite, or Wolf's Bane. This is basically what Kabuto is named after. **  
> **
> 
> 3\. Looking up poisons is hella fun, 20/10 should do this. So much interesting history 3.
> 
> 4\. **Still no pairings,** but hey, at this point in canon Sakura still creams her leggings for Sasuke, Naruto has a crush on Sakura, and Sasuke cries over family photos at night when he thinks no one is looking. So I intend to keep it that way for a little while longer.
> 
> 5. _Henge_ is a low-level technique taught in Academy for disguise purposes. I'm sure Naruto's Sexy Jutsu is this. Sakura's dealing with low-level mercs with no skill in the ninja arts so she can pretty much henge and not get caught based on appearance alone. If she did something ninja-like, she'd be caught.
> 
> And that's it for this chapter. I hope everyone enjoyed it and found Sakura's feelings on things realistic. She's pretty naïve when it comes to the nit-grit of Shinobi life and getting into Takehana's messes has just made her face the reality that she could kill someone to protect her own. Of course, Sakura never asked the most important question of Takehana. Can any you guess this question? That's this chapter's cookie challenge.
> 
> **Repost from FF.net. One of several.**


	3. Arc I - Scrolls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fight scene:
> 
> **Hiji Suru Style** \- Force of Nature ft. SuikenSword
> 
> **Breakthrough** \- Jespy
> 
> **Day 1** – Ta-Ku

**Chapter III: Spars, Strength, and Scrolls**

* * *

On the fifth day since their training had begun, Sakura woke up feeling sore. She'd been training harder recently and that was starting to make her feel sluggish. She did some stretches before hopping in the shower and getting ready to escort Tazuna to the bridge.

"Yo."

Sakura looked up at Kakashi the moment she left her room.

"How did it go last night?" Sakura blanked out for a moment before realizing her sensei was asking about aim training with Sasuke. Blushing at how nice everything was last night (and the thought of Sasuke) Sakura murmured well and pointed to her healing split lip and bruises. Kakashi eye smiled.

"I was curious because Sasuke has a bit of a shiner on his cheek."

Sakura blushed even harder at that. It had been a lucky shot when Sasuke was caught off guard by one of her kicks. Of course he immediately retaliated with a punch to her mouth.

"Luck, I guess."

Kakashi stopped eye-smiling.

"Ah, Sakura-chan, self-doubt isn't a good thing you know. You're capable enough to take on the boys. Why don't you try sparring with Naruto tonight after dinner? He needs a break from tree-climbing." Kakashi suggested in a friendly manner.

Sakura felt just a tiny prick of discomfort as Kakashi told her she was capable of taking on the boys. Sasuke was so quick and skilled that she had gotten her ass handed to her with him only using taijutsu. And Naruto had endless stamina. Sakura generally felt drained just by looking at him, much less fighting him.

Kakashi must have noticed her discomfort because was now ruffling her light pink hair, causing it to flatten against her face.

"You can do it. You have to figure out how to win."

It was at that moment that the door to Sasuke and Naruto's room opened, with Naruto looking out.

"Kakashi-sensei, Sakura-chan!" The blond bounced to them.

"Morning." Kakashi raised his hand before poking Sakura forward.

"Sakura has something she wants to tell you, Naruto."

Naruto's face dropped for a second before lighting up like someone stuffed a lantern in it.

"Really? What's up Sakura-chan?" The loudness of his voice attracted Sasuke, who poked his head out of the door to tell Naruto he was being too loud.

Glaring at her sensei and his darned meddling, Sakura huffed. "Naruto, want to spar tonight? You and me, all our ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu allowed."

Whatever Naruto had been expecting at that point it had not been that at all. His grin faltered for one second before grinning even harder. Sasuke just looked confused.

"Sure, Sakura-chan. Just don't expect me to go easy on you 'cuz you're a girl."

Sakura met him with a confident expression. "Wasn't even planning on it."

Kakashi's eye smile was back as he told them that he would be the referee between the two this time.

* * *

Sakura sat in the cave, grinding Machin seeds into power. It had been a peaceful day, much more than the other two. Takehana had given her a firsthand course in poisons and their uses and Sakura was a little impressed.

Even though they were shinobi, when poison was taught in school the instructors tended to treat it as a bit of a cowardly weapon. She was sure it wasn't so in other ninjas, but the Leaf's Will of Fire very much emphasized heroic actions, or so Sakura felt. That and the boys generally didn't learn about poisons, or infiltration for that matter. Those were generally ' _kunoichi_ ' skills. Takehana had snorted when she grumbled about that, saying the idea that poison was a 'female weapon' and the disdain towards anything feminine was nothing new.

But Sakura discovered that learning about plants and what they could do to your body was pretty fascinating, more so than the _ikebana_ classes she had in the Academy. She resolved herself to also look into botany when she came back to Konoha.

"Apply a little pressure Sakura, it must be finely ground." Takehana instructed. The serenity of yesterday seemed to have stayed with Takehana and Sakura hadn't been as frightened of her as she had the night when Takehana told her she was to kill Gato. Privately Sakura thought it might be because the woman had sensed how distraught she had her. In any case, Takehana seemed more reserved today as their usual sundown tea boiled.

The machin was now a grayish powder with no odor and apparently colorless when in water. Handing the mortar and pestle to Takehana, Sakura took a cup of tea for herself as she watched Takehana examine her student's work.

"Well done. Have you thought of the ways you can get him to ingest it?"

Sakura bit her lip. Earlier today as she had watched the mist around Gato's ship an idea came that would require her to both climb up the ship's side and remain undetected and then perform _Kirigakure no Jutsu,_ but it was a long shot.

"Well, the machin is a poison that doesn't have to be ingested, right?"

"Correct."

Sakura fiddled with her cup. She didn't want to let down Takehana with this jutsu, especially since she didn't know if it would work.

"I was thinking… You see I have a ninjutsu that takes my chakra and nearby water and manipulates it into a fine mist which I can use to conceal myself and disperse at the same time. But I need a source of water for it. I was thinking that maybe I can use the machin as a liquid poison and use it to send a mist through Gato's room, filling it with poison air."

Takehana gave her a wide smile.

"How delightfully deadly."

Sakura felt a shiver run down her spine.

"That's the point but the problem is making sure he doesn't see the mist and realize something is wrong, Plus, I'm not sure I can manage to stick to the ship and do a jutsu. If I can observe it happening, perhaps it couldn't wo-"

"Done. Come with me, I shall try this out with another poison."

Takehana was up so fast that Sakura didn't realize what has happening as Takehana grabbed a flask of poison and dragged Sakura out the cave. They disguised themselves with a _henge_ as Takehana led her to an area near the harbors. Sakura hadn't seen this shabby building before, but she could guess why. It seemed that while there was little opportunity for employment on the island, the mercenaries Gato kept hiring were frequent visitors to the brothel. Sakura could see why Tazuna never came near here; it was a depressing sight seeing the faces of the woman who stood outside of the brothel. The prostitutes in Konoha never looked half as miserable.

Suddenly, they heard a commotion. A huge man who looked to be made of muscle had left the brothel, followed by a screeching prostitute.

"You didn't pay!" The woman's dress was falling off her shoulder, it looked like she hastily tried to put it on while chasing after the customer. Several bruises were seen on her neck and tear-stained face. Sakura clenched her fist at the sight but was stopped by a hand of Takehana's as they watched the scene unfold from an alley.

Takehana removed the cap from the flask they had, using her chakra to draw out the liquid inside from it. Her hands positively glowed with chakra of a strange light blue color. Sakura had never seen anyone have this type of visible chakra before. It felt much purer than other chakra as well.

Takehana smiled as she drew the liquid into a bubble and without any visible handseals made it into a small ball of thin mist. The man had knocked the prostitute out cold on the ground and was heading towards the harbor. Still holding the compressed ball of mist, Takehana and Sakura followed him silently into another alley where he turned around.

"Who the hell are you and why are yo-"

Takehana didn't give him the chance to speak as she dispersed the mist ball into mist so fine it couldn't be seen. Within seconds the man was choking up blood on the ground and Takehana waved her hands to disperse the jutsu. Still under _henge_ , Sakura watched the loathing in Takehana's eyes as she knelt down to touch his neck to check for a pulse.

"Such scum. This world has enough filth in it without the likes of him adding to the refuse." Her hands went into the man's robe and pulled out a pouch. She threw it to Sakura and the Konoha genin could hear the distinct jingle of coins inside.

"Give it to the prostitute he beat. I'm sorry, Sakura, but that is all the time we have for today. Good luck with your spar and don't disappoint me with the result, alright?" The _henge_ dropped and Takehana gave her a cool little smile. Sakura, more stunned than anything, gave a glance to the dead man in front of her.

"What's going to happen to him?"

The smile Takehana had given her in the cavern was back.

"Don't worry about it."

* * *

Sakura was very shaken by what had transpired earlier. There had been little pity for the man Takehana killed, especially after Sakura had dropped off the pouch to the prostitutes crowding around the beaten woman, who had blood running down her face and dress. But how ruthless her teacher had been, not even _regretting it_. It was a different scene from Kakashi, who fought to protect his students. It was a cold-blooded murder.

But it was the feel of the chakra that Sakura had been most perplexed by. It didn't feel like her own chakra, like Sasuke's, or Kakashi's. Naruto's came closer, but only because of how dense it was, not the feel of it. Sakura didn't even think she was cut out to be a sensor but she could tell that Takehana's chakra was not natural in the slightest. Whatever she had done to get such chakra, it probably explained how ruthless the old woman was.

The strange woman Sakura had discovered in the cave had become an endless curiosity for Sakura, one that she both feared and admired. The Ninja World had much to be thankful that Takehana had never decided to become a shinobi; she would have been fierce indeed.

She ate her dinner silently, very aware that Naruto and Sasuke were staring at her. With the incident by the harbor, Sakura had forgotten that she was supposed to spar with her teammate. Since she had barely used her chakra that day, it wasn't like she was tired, just too shaken. Would Gato end up like that on the floor, choking and dead? What would Sakura feel after killing him?

"Hey, Sakura-chan?" Sakura looked up from her rice bowl.

"Don't forget, I'm going to defeat you today." Her blond teammate grinned across the table. Naruto's smiles were usually infuriating but after the events today she felt a little relieved at the sight of it. Things could happen and Naruto would still smile, after all.

' **Yeah, right! Let's show him what we are capable of and kick his ass!'**

Inner's cries of confidence gave Sakura the bit of fire she needed to meet Naruto's face with a gaze of confidence. After all, Kakashi and Takehana both told her that she could beat Naruto and all she had to do was prove that to her teammates. Naruto was still grinning at her so she slammed her hand on the table, making some the plates jump. Naruto stopped grinning immediately.

"Sorry _Naruto-kun_ , I'm going to stomp you flat."

"Heh." Sasuke chuckled quietly to the side as he watched his two teammates begin staring each other down. He'd never seen Sakura this motivated or Naruto this intense about a fight unless with him or Kakashi. Maybe it was just how forward Sakura had been with this fight. She never seemed to want to spar with either of them. Which, considering Naruto's sounds of pain every time she was angry at him, was strange because she could hit hard enough. She was still so weak, as Sasuke discovered during their spar, but she wasn't hopeless. Not that he'd ever tell her that. She'd stop all her training and bother him about a date again.

Team 7 and their client's family quickly shuffled outside to see the match.

* * *

Traditional Shinobi Sparring, or _Dentōteki no Shinobi Kumite_ , was a traditional dating to the Warring States Period from before the founding of the first shinobi village, Konohagakure. Some people even whispered that the Sage of the Six Paths had created the protocol for it when wanting to make a formal way for two friendly parties to test their mettle against one another, not intending it to be anything but a peaceful spar. This was rumor of course, just another one of the preposterous myths that people attributed to this man, like the idea he created the moon.

Whatever the origin, the rules were widespread and breaking them was rude. Sakura had remembered the stir it had caused when Naruto and Sasuke had sparred in their academy times without making "Seal of Reconciliation" after the battle ended. It was a strange honor among shinobi.

Kakashi had put his book away for the minute as he came up to Sakura and Naruto facing each other. Tazuna's family were sitting a good distance away on a blanket underneath a tree, the same one Sasuke was relaxing on top of. It was a mostly quiet night, the only sound being the crickets and the soft bubbling of the stream nearby.

"Hey Sakura-chan? If I win, will you call me Naruto-kun like you do for the bastard?" Sakura could swear she heard Kakashi snort as he came out of the shadows and out away his book.

"Alright," started Kakashi, "You two probably know the rules: Use what you can, no killing or gravely wounding people. Loser is the first to forfeit, or when I step in and choose one." The Copy-Nin walked between them and cut the air between them in a signal. Serious green eye met ever-laughing blue ones as both participants bowed and made the Seal of Confrontation while gathering chakra for their first moves.

"Begin!"

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" called out Naruto immediately. Sakura frowned. Naruto depended on that jutsu and no wonder, it was very useful and something people their age generally couldn't do to lack of chakra and lack of control. Yet Naruto was able to make of these clones like it was nothing.

' **All that chakra and it's wasted on him'**

Despite not liking Inner's tone, she wouldn't lie about the fact that she was jealous of Naruto's reserves, especially when going up against a spar. It would be impossible to wear him out in a spar because she'd be the one who caved in first. For now Sakura needed a vantage point, somewhere he couldn't reach her easily.

The clones charged forward before Sakura could plan out her ideas any further and she set to dodging. Naruto's style was less finesse and more street brawls in the alleyways. Sakura's was the basic Academy style, balanced but predictable. She blocked several punches from the clones (and Naruto somewhere amongst them), leaving two clones open to be kicked by her in the stomach. One dispelled immediately and the other was sent back. This did little to stop the barrage of clones being sent her way.

One lucky fist punched her in the face, sending her back. There was no blood but a dull, aching pain in her cheek promising a magnificent bruise.

' _Damn it. There's too many of them and they keep getting closer. I need something to get them away.'_

A few of the clones that were farther back threw kunai at her. An idea flicking in Sakura's mind was put into place as she got her explosive tags out and performed a quick kawarimi.

A poof later and she could see a bunch of Naruto clones staring at the mossy log she switched with. They were scarcely able to blink before Sakura, off in the distance, released the chakra in the exploding tags she put on the back of the mossy log and watched the log explode in the clones face. Three more clones poofed out of existence, leaving at least a dozen and an opening for Sakura to run for the river.

One of the Narutos who hadn't been dispelled or hurt by the force of the blast headed towards her, fist cocked back. Flipping a timed explosive kunai in her hand, she pivoted back to send one at him, releasing it just as he dodged the kunai. The Naruto who had been given chase was knocked aside a few feet away before whining at her.

"No fair, Sakura-chan, you keep trying to blow me up." The Naruto rubbed its head as it stood up again, now joined by four more of the orange-wearing genin. Sakura quickly made sure that the other Naruto clones were farther back before running to the river. The water wasn't deep enough to conceal any clones well but enough to make fighting her a hassle. Sakura landed on the water with a flourish, skating to the side. Some of the clones looked like she'd, well, _literally walked on water_. Sakura sent her teammate a wink as one of the Narutos turned back to yell at Kakashi for not teaching him this.

Kakashi looked up from his perch and shrugged.

"She learned that by herself." The Naruto clones snapped back to look at her but all they saw was…

_Mist._

Sakura clasped her hands in the Tiger seal, releasing more and more water through it. This technique would take a bit of her chakra, but Sakura didn't have many techniques anyway. She couldn't beat Naruto in taijutsu, ninjutsu was too chakra-draining and she didn't know any good offensive ones, and while she could fight off genjutsu, she didn't know any to cast.

Even against Naruto, the odds were extremely against her. She, the top Kunoichi in the class, despite only beating Ino barely for the place, was going to lose to the Academy's deadlast. Sakura bit her lip at how unfunny this was. The day she met Takehana she'd acknowledged that she wanted to get stronger but even though it felt that she learned so much in the past few days, here she was in the same position again.

The mist was thick and spread out enough that the clones were unable to see each other or her for that matter.

"Hey, where'd she go?" mumbled a clone.

"I bet Sakura's hiding among us with _henge_ to confuse us." Sakura, who had been taking advantageof the mist and the trees nearby to tree-walk up to a branch Naruto generally couldn't reach (she hoped), facepalmed. And almost punched herself in the face when she heard the heated rhetoric amongst the clones begin anew.

' **That idiot!'**

' _He fell for this with Kakashi too. Wow, Naruto, don't you ever learn?'_

Safely secure far up, Sakura watched as smoke pile after smoke pile poured through the thick mist., which was spreading thinner with every minute. Giggling for a moment, she waited till Naruto began dispersing all his clones before sending several kunai and shuriken down at him.

_'I have only one chance to do this.'_

With the mist clearing, Naruto's eye sight would have no doubt begun helping him dodge the projectiles. Sakura merely did what she and Sasuke practiced the night before, praying that this time one of the kunais would land where wanted. The second set of projectiles hit the earlier ones, making Naruto unable to dodge one particular kunai. It him in the arm, provoking a yelp of pain from her teammate.

"First blood is yours."

Sakura nearly fell on the tree when she heard Kakashi speak behind her. She turned around to stare at him as he waved and eye-smiled at her. Sakura couldn't even yell at him for startling her when Naruto started yelling for her come out and fight him like a man.

Not sure whether to keep hidden or go throttle him for that comment, Sakura decided to send another shuriken to show him that she was hiding in a tree. Naruto finally looked up at her as she grinned and waved down at him, mist completely gone by this point. Naruto started sputtering as he saw how high up she was and pointed a shaking finger at her.

"Hey! Kakashi-sensei, are you sure that's not cheating or anything, because I don't know if I can make it that high up yet."

Kakashi, still behind her, stuck his neck out so Naruto could see him and waved his hand off.

"Now, now, Naruto, think of this as training. Now you have incentive to reach the top."

Sakura leaned a little forward to stick her tongue out at Naruto for added effect.

"Hey, _Naruto-chan_ , you can always give up you know. I'm sure if you can make it up the big scawwy tree you can forfeit and admit defeat and all will be right again." Her teasing tone, stuck out tongue, and the _chan_ added to his name had the desired effect as Naruto cringed and stop pointing his finger at her.

"No way! I'll make it up, you better believe it! And I'm winning this fight and taking you down!" Naruto yelled confidently at her. Sakura sat back and smiled down at him.

' **He's never gonna make it.'**

' _We'll see. Naruto's one of those ninja that keep on surprising you.'_

"Good luck with him, Sakura." Kakashi told her softly as he jumped off to go sit with Sasuke and the rest. Sakura nodded and pushed her hair back, something she did when she wanted to think with no distractions. Thankfully, despite Naruto's wails of anguish and pumped up shouts, he still wasn't able to make it this high up, and Sakura had gone nearly to the top for that reason. It gave her a long bit of time to think about how she could win this without having to engage him in the process. Thinking in combat wasn't that smart and Sakura wasn't good enough to do it.

' _Yet.'_

Promising herself that her shortcomings in combat were going to change very, very soon, Sakura looked around the area for something she could use. Close-combat was still a no due to her deficiencies with nin and taijutsu. No genjutsu. She could send a couple of kunai at him again, but that wouldn't work well.

" _You do not need complicated techniques to kill a person, but you need them to battle one."_

Sakura remembered Takehana's words and suddenly an idea came to mind. It was risky but, heck, maybe she could pull it off. One more quick glance at climbing Naruto and then she set to work, bringing her hands in for some seals.

* * *

Naruto was not having the best day. Sure, he improved a great deal over the past few days but it seemed that chakra control was something he'd particularity had a difficulty in doing because even Sasuke was doing better than him. He'd followed Sakura's advice to the letter, but he couldn't make it to the top yet, and even though he could reach more than a dozen and a half-feet up, after that, his control started slipping and he kept falling. The worse of it was that Sakura had picked a very tall tree.

He looked up at her again, watching her smile as she waved down at him, pink hair shrouding an unusually happy face. While normally he would feel elation at such a look directed at him, and he had to admit she was really pretty when happy, this was not the occasion he'd been hoping to see Sakura smile at him at. He was supposed to be able to win this spar and possibly get her to think him cool enough that she'd go on a date with him to Ichiraku, and then, and then, his coolness factor would make him respected by everyone so much that Old Man Hokage would have to resign and give him th-

Wait, what was he doing again? Naruto slid down further as his focus went into his daydreams, pulling him away from smiling Sakura. It was simply unfair that she could do this to him. He'd almost had her on the ground, since Sakura wasn't a really good hand-to-hand fighter, but then she pulled the fact she _could freaking walk on water out of nowhere_ and then that mist thing of Zabuza's. Naruto would have been whooping for joy if it wasn't used against him. He did want to know where she learned it.

He didn't expect her to be able to hit with a kunai either, but he'd been too distracted with dodging it to realize she made it change the trajectory. That was a pretty neat trick he was sure she learned from Sasuke, he did fancy shit like that all the time. It wasn't like Naruto was happy that she could get this far with him, even being able to hit him with a kunai, but he could feel some respect for what his teammate was trying to do with this match.

' _Sakura-chan's really smart. She's probably up there thinking of a way to win this match without actually fighting me.'_

It wasn't the kind of match he liked to fight, relishing in an all out brawl like he had with Sasuke sometimes, but there was something he could really respect in how she thought things out. Didn't mean Naruto wasn't really pissed as he landed on his ass on the ground again.

"Dobe, maybe you should give up." Sasuke finally spoke the first time since the match began. A quick glance at the bastard made it clear that he was highly amused at the fact Naruto had been trying to get up the tree for ten minutes.

' _Che, as if he can do better.'_

"Maybe you should shut up, teme!"

"Make me."

"THAT'S IT! ONCE I KICK SAKURA'S BUTT, I'M KICKING YOUR ASS TEME!"

"Don't count on it." That wasn't Sasuke's voice, that was-

Naruto was slammed on the ground by a viciously grinning Sakura who had somehow walked down the tree without him noticing. He was about pull himself to go return her slam when he realized she thrown two kunai into the fabric of his jacket, effectively pinning him to the ground. Not only that, but as he saw her make the seal for "release" he noticed that they were explosive kunai. Oh shit.

"Naruto?" She smiled down at him, still holding her hands in position. Naruto's mouth wriggled in distaste for a second before sighing.

"Okay, I give up." And he laid his head flat on the ground to see that there was still a Sakura up in the trees.

"Wait, how?"

Sakura struck a victorious pose with two fingers in a V symbol in the air before explaining her method.

"I knew I couldn't beat you face to face, so I devised a way to distract into a position where you would have to forfeit. I left a normal bunshin up there knowing you couldn't tell the difference and then quietly climbed down the other side of the tree while you tried to get up. Then you started with Sasuke so I decided to reveal myself and slam you on the ground and pin you to an explosive kunai so you gave up."

Naruto chuckled as the smiling Sakura-chan high up in the trees disappeared. Kakashi finally appeared to pronounce Sakura as the winner (due to clever outmaneuvering). Sakura bent down to take back her two kunai and help Naruto up.

The two stared at each other, with Naruto's hands behinds his back to give the impression that her win didn't mean much to him.

"Well, I guess that was a cool win." He popped on eye open to watch her reaction. Surprisingly she wasn't mad, even though she punched him lightly in the non-injured shoulder.

"Whatever, _Naruto-chan_."

They stuck out their hands and entwined fingers together in the Seal of Reconciliation, ending the battle as friends.

* * *

Due to Naruto being Naruto, he decided to refocus his efforts on climbing the tree and went back to the tree Sakura had picked out. An elated Sakura, no really Inner was still screaming, shouted yells of encouragement as Sasuke, Tazuna, and Tsunami went up to congratulate her. Well, Tazuna's family congratulated her; Sasuke just stood around and looked cool.

The now familiar ruffling of her hair was felt again as Kakashi patted it. Strangely enough, he'd been right that she could take the boys on. Despite her inadequacies in many forms of combat, she'd won and she wasn't going to let anyone take that feeling of accomplishment away from. A small part of her really wanted Sasuke to say something to her, anything, but Sakura was pretty content basking in her win as she was. A few minutes later and she was left alone as everyone except Naruto and Sasuke went back to the house and her teammates remained to train themselves into comas. Sakura went back to the stream to wash her swollen cheek with the cool water.

With the sounds of fighting gone, it was quiet once more. Sakura kneeled by the creek to wash out her face when she heard a shuffling in the distance. The moon was bright enough that she could see something in the distance of the trees, something bright. A face popped out from behind a tree and Sakura's breathing stilled and muscles tensed at the familiar features and the elegant shape of kimono.

Takehana nodded at her and then disappeared from Sakura's line of sight, as if she had never been there. Sakura visibly relaxed at the sight of her temporary mentor being gone. She'd never thought that Takehana would come out all the way here to watch her match. Sure, she told her to win it, but it never occurred to Sakura that the woman would watch. But that nod was one of approval and Sakura felt it add to the joy she was already feeling.

* * *

Sakura's instincts told her to sneak off for a few hours to Takehana's cave to see if she had anything for Sakura to work on now that the spar was over. The win had settled Sakura's discomfort at watching Takehana kill so easily, though as usual, her feelings about the old woman were mixed due to how much of a mystery she was. But, she also wanted to seek her out for some sign that she was doing something right.

Of course she was happy with the result of the match, but with it came a yearning to be told by an adult figure that she was on the right track to strength. Kakashi merely ruffled her hair; she was sure Takehana would teach her something for showing growth. And that is why she was making her way to the cave.

Takehana was not sleeping and Sakura wasn't expecting her to be. As usual she was sitting by the fire and drinking her tea. Sakura dropped in, with Takehana scarcely nodding before the pink-haired woman took a seat across the fire from her. Takehana merely took a stick to stoke the fire and make it warmer for them both.

"I won." Sakura finally said, a bit of a happy tone in the small statement. Takehana had apparently seen the whole thing and obviously knew but it felt _so good_ to let the world know.

"I saw." There was little eye-contact, just the merry crackling of fire and wood popping from the heat. Takehana sighed as the teapot started bubbling again and finally looked up.

"What do you want? A ruffle on the head like that young man gave you? An acknowledgement of your strength like the one from the blond boy? Or should I ignore your win like the dark-haired boy you seem to fawn over?" The unusually acerbic tone from the old woman startled Sakura and she bent her head down.

"I say this because you cannot rely on others' acknowledgement for strength. You are strong because you wish to be, because you consider yourself strong. Overconfidence is as pathetic as self-doubt to me, Sakura. Honesty with one's self, but not to point where it is an excuse for not trying, is the best a person can hope for." She threw the stick into the fire.

Sakura breathed in deeply. Now that she was here, coming to Takehana's cave seemed stupid. Wasn't it just an hour ago that she told herself that she wouldn't let anyone take this win away from her? And now this woman was doing just that, as usual stripping away all that Sakura was. Sakura always felt emotionally naked around Takehana, as she was coming to realize and perhaps that was the source of the discomfort she felt. The way she easily told the woman things and dropped her guard down around her despite clear indications of danger, the enigma around her that kept persisting in her mind, and the way that Takehana saw through. As if she was clear.

Sakura wanted to defend herself. She wanted to say that she was right in wanting praise because, god damn it, she worked hard. And won despite so many opposing factors. She never felt this emotionally vulnerable, not even when Sasuke called her annoying months ago. And it hurt because she wasn't being told she was pathetic for her skills, but for her character.

Shinobi must not cry. Shinobi must not cry,

"You can cry if you wish. If you want to." Takehana must have seen how Sakura's nose was quivering, a sign of impending tears.

"But crying shows weakness. My weakness." Sakura's voice was small and unsure.

"I reiterate, Sakura, that you should stop caring what others think of you. You are young but you are growing. In your profession, the next few years will be the few you have to show you can survive. You want strength, gain it. Gain it yourself. You wanted to be able to catch up to your teammates? Do it. But know the point you are going towards will be decided by you, not by anyone else."

Sakura's eyes misted a little and she held her head between her hands. She was really a mess to be reduced to tears from just a small tongue-lashing was her only thought as she let a few tear slip through. This trip from home was a strange one, one that she couldn't really describe. On one hand she felt stronger than she had at home and on the other, she felt less secure in her place. It started with her noticing the gap between her and the rest of Team 7 and now showed up with Takehana's criticism. Perhaps it was time to stop looking at Sasuke every time she did something that she was supposed to. She _was supposed to_ find ways to beat Naruto. She _was supposed to_ fight back in spars against Sasuke. She _was supposed to_ find Kakashi and ask him for training. She was supposed to find ways to get stronger, to help her mission.

A fist clenched in anger as Sakura struggled against her own thoughts. The vow of pain Naruto had made back after the first attack when they left Konoha, he'd promised to not run away. Sakura's nails dug into her skin enough that they drudged up blood and she breathed through the pain, silently vowing the memory of it would remind her that she could do it.

"I am strong by my own measures."

Takehana just watched her, not reacting to the words or the small sobs.

By the time the tea cooled down, Sakura was back to normal. Her palms hurt but not enough for Sakura to look for medical attention. It was during the first cup of tea when Takehana finally spoke.

"It's past midnight. Two mornings after this one is when you will finally strike. If you kill Gato, I will reward you with this." And she took a scroll out from her kimono and showed it to her. Sakura looked at the scroll with puzzled eyes before shrugging up at Takehana.

The woman held it up to show her.

"This a summoning contract. You will find out the creature yourself, but if you dispose of Gato, I shall give it to you to sign and carry as I have no further need of it. With it you'll be able to call on summons to help you in battle and in other circumstances. "

Sakura's mouth was left ajar.

' **A summon! But scrolls like that are rare!'**

Summons were rare and very, very valuable. Most ninja never developed them as it took a tremendous amount of skill (and chakra) to summon good summons and also command them. Of course the Legendary Sannin could do it and were famous for their summoning abilities. Kakashi had mentioned he had summons once, but he hadn't summoned them. Sakura knew from Academy homework that the Hokage possessed the Monkey summoning contract.

The possibilities of what exactly Takehana held in her scroll were mouth-watering. Given the woman's love for poison, Sakura suspected something like spiders or scorpions. Of course, those would be really creepy summons but she could see the appeal in something like them. And they would strike fear on the battlefield.

It was to fantasies of summoning big ass spiders on the battlefield that Sakura bid Takehana a quiet goodnight and went off to bed. Emotionally, she was still a little stung by the old woman's harsh words, but Sakura felt it was good for her. Kakashi wasn't going to really tell her that. Sasuke was harsh but nowhere as wise and Naruto, well, she didn't think Naruto would ever put her down like that. She hoped not. Sakura looked at the quiet village she was leaving behind for Tazuna's house, wishing the mission was over. She was starting to really miss her mother and father.

* * *

The next few days went really well, with the small disturbance of Naruto ranting about meeting a "boy cuter than Sakura" and the morning of the seventh day when Naruto scared them all by almost falling off a tree. Sasuke had saved him in the nick of time. It seemed as though both boys were finally able to climb trees as well as Sakura.

Of course Sakura could practically skate on water, but she didn't feel like making either of the boys train harder.

Her sessions with Takehana had been going well too. The machin was ready and Sakura had snuck onto the ship the night after her win against Naruto to plan out her strategy. She noticed that Gato was constantly followed by two strong-looking samurai. She briefly caught their names as Zori and Waraji and they seemed to the best of Gato's men. Considering everyone that Gato hired that wasn't Zabuza and his helper seemed to be incompetent, Sakura really doubted this but felt that perhaps it would be best to avoid them. The problem was that they were usually with the bastard and Sakura didn't want to poison anyone else, both out of moral duty and just because that was downright sloppy. Somehow she'd been able to buy a gas mask in the village with her meager savings, even with the inflation in the Land of the Waves.

The best luck yet was that Gato's ship was a dark red in most places. So while she planned on climbing away from the docks, it was a small relief that she could camouflage herself if she covered her hair with the red hoodie she bought and not resort to a _henge_.

Despite everything being ready, it was hard to get rid of this premonition that something wouldn't work out as she wanted it to. That could be the fact that she and Tazuna were currently sitting on Kakashi as he was doing one-finger push ups to regain his strength and it could be the fact that Gato was planning something big.

"So, you think tomorrow Gato might try to attack the bridge?"

Sakura nodded.

"I hid around the docks again and these two drunk men were complaining about being called into work tomorrow for a surprise."

Kakashi grunted in response and left Sakura and Tazuna to worry.

"Starting tomorrow, Sasuke and Naruto will join us at the bridge. Sakura, could I ask you to stay here and watch over Tsunami and Inari for me? I don't think Zabuza will come here knowing I'm at the bridge, but Gato may try something." He paused mid-push up.

Both boys decide to hobble in earlier, supporting each other. Sakura had sighed and given them some balm Takehana had taught her to make to lessen bruising. Idiots, honestly. What if they were too beat up to fight when attacked? Then Naruto had yelled at Inari, who was a brat, and Kakashi had to calm everything down. There really was a strange tension in the air tonight.

"Yes, sensei."

The worry didn't subside with each push up Kakashi did. Every time Sakura was near him she would get the feeling that she should tell him about Takehana and Gato. There was a tiny prickle of guilt every time they discussed tactics that she was betraying him somehow. Sakura wasn't sure whether it was because she was receiving help from another teacher or whether it was the fact that Takehana was _most definitely not good news_. But the latter idea scared Sakura into silence. How disapproving would Kakashi-sensei be if he found out Sakura had foolishly made a deal with a strange woman she just met and was going to kill someone on her orders? Sakura couldn't bear think about that happening, which is why the words stayed inside, like her mouth was full of taffy instead of secrets.

Preparing for the mission that would start at dawn, Sakura went to bed early with her head filled with dreams of poisoned men and demons in the mist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go, the last chapter before we finally get to Gato and the fight on the bridge. Sakura's been called out on her personality flaws by Takehana, who's scary, and she managed to win a spar against Naruto with her cleverness. Just pointing this out, but the databook statistics for them at this time have Naruto as the weakest in the team, not Sakura and Sakura, even now, is the highest ranked in intelligence because of her rather fabulous booksmarts. Naruto and Sasuke, however, can think on their feet.
> 
> Something I noticed with Shikamaru is that he removed himself from the battle for a second to think of a way to trap Temari. I wanted to show something like that with Sakura. If she had an opponent who could tree climb, well, it would have been over quick. And I'm sure Naruto wouldn't begrudge her the spar either. But yeah, this is where Sakura stands in combat as of now in our story, useless against most opponents, long-range, can hide herself to go plan. Her aim is improving but still, long-range.
> 
> The other thing to notice is the hints I keep giving about Takehana and Sakura's relationship. It's taken this long but Sakura's realized that making a deal with an old lady in a weird cave is not the smartest thing to do. But yet she won't tell Kakashi?
> 
> _Ikebana_ is Japanese flower-arranging. We see Ino and Sakura learning it in the Academy. That sparring hand seal I wrote of is a real thing in the manga and anime. The Sage of the Six Paths thing is just something I stuck in there for kicks.
> 
>  
> 
> **Repost from FF.net**


	4. Arc I - Something to Kill and Die For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle of the bridge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack:   
> Mist – Nujabes  
> Fight scene: Death Wish - Force of Nature  
> Reverse Situation- Naruto Shippuden OST  
> I'd also like to point out I have a tumblr for my fanfiction (Baezetsu, whitedeviledeggs for my personal) I will be posting things about this story and its continuations on there.

Arc I: Chapter IV: Something to Kill and Die For

 

* * *

 

 

When does a ninja strike? A ninja strikes when their enemy is relaxed, when their guard is down. A ninja who wants to strike and avoid being found out by her sensei leaves before dawn, grabbing their equipment and dark red sweatshirt. They spare a small glance as they look into their teammate’s rooms, just in case something happens, and silently make their way to leave a note on the counter, stating that they were training in a certain part of the island this morning and that they would be back before Tazuna left for the bridge. A ninja pulls a red sweatshirt over their bright pink hair, places a gasmask on their face, and surveys the ship they have to climb to strike.

The ninja runs through the mist, wishing to reach their target before dawn. The village is still sleeping on a peaceful day in mid-April, but the ninja cannot sleep in today, or at least not this ninja.

Elsewhere, other ninjas plan to strike as well. One squeezes an apple to show his strength to the other. The younger ninja of the pair wipes the juice from the floor and hands his elder the large sword he was now well enough to yield. A look is shared between them, comrades, shinobi and tool.

“We should go Haku.”

That ninja slips on his mask.

Another one does the same as he goes to look at his team. His prodigy ninja is staring disapprovingly at the one ninja on the island who is going to sleep in today, face pale with exhaustion. The head ninja shrugs and pronounces the blonde ninja incapable of duty today, which is a shame considering he’d like two on the bridge today. After all, ninja’s strike when one is sleeping.

But where, you may ask, do ninjas strike?

Two ninja ran by road. Two traveled by boat. They would meet at the bridge.

* * *

Sakura stared down at the sea, gulping. The last time she had escaped Gato’s ship she’d literally climbed the porthole and grabbed down to a ledge she saw, and then dropped herself to the sea. No one had noticed the splash. But this time it was different. She’d scouted the ship from a distance already and it seemed to have been filled with a nervous energy. Gato was definitely planning something today and Sakura only hoped she had time to find out what it was.

But until then, as the sun’s first rays shone on her, Sakura would crawl up. She really did feel like some sort of lizard like this, but any other way would put her plan in danger. Interacting with Gato in some disguise was too risky, so Sakura could spare a couple of minutes to climb up the side like some weird red lizard stalking its prey.

**‘Well, you are.’**

Sakura was almost thankful that her chakra wasn’t affected by the nervousness her inner’s statement amplified. Somehow, despite her weird dream last night of mists and people dying of poison injections, she was able to sleep, but now that she was awake the anxiousness towards her task was back. Her first kill.

The man in the alleyway that Takehana had killed flashed in her mind, reminding of her the fate that she was about to inflict on Gato. Would blood spill from his mouth too, staining the ground as it poured out from his mouth and formed a pool around the body? It was a slow poison, but too advanced for him to have a cure, and no offense to the Land of Waves, but Sakura doubted they had a competent enough medic or doctor to know what to do with machin. So if it was slow, would he know it? Chances were that Sakura wasn’t going to see his death, so her speculations were probably warrantless.

Still, it aroused both her conscience and her curiosity. Her conscience because most people didn’t poison their first kills. Or at least that was what the Academy said. They did a whole lecture on killing and the effects it had on one’s mental health. The teachers did try to explain how killing was their reality, but at time not always necessary and that the first kill was always the worst. Sakura remembered that lecture because Naruto had skipped it and Iruka was slightly irritated as he tried to tell them the story of his first kill. It wasn’t a curriculum requirement but her, admittedly soft-hearted, sensei wanted them to know what it was like.

Iruka’s first kill had occurred in the first year he was a genin, towards the end of it. It had happened before he even realized what he was doing. A reaction.

Sakura wasn’t sure if she wanted to have it like that. Certainly, it would be terrible because there was little intent. But it was also quick. Unlike Sakura’s, which was drawn out because Gato was meant to feel his impending death and suffer through it. He was supposed to know. It wasn’t an accident, like Iruka’s first kill, it was pre-mediated murder.

But Sakura, guiltily, also wanted to see it happen. Perhaps because of how this was occurring, but there seemed to be something right about seeing it to the end. People who poisoned others generally didn’t do it because they wanted to watch, but this was different. Because maybe, maybe in his death, somehow the strangeness of Takehana would be revealed.

Sakura groaned again. Her thoughts were too complicated for her chakra too work as well as she wanted to. She could only move her chakra-laden palms over the slick surface of the ship up to the windows she knew to be Gato’s. They were clear glass, large and modern. Sakura strained her neck to sneak a quick peak to see what was there. From a split second she could see a mess of spiky gray hair leaning back on the windows, along with the back of a couch. She hadn’t counted on the windows being open, which made it too easy. But it looked like she could thank Gato for his bad habits because he’d cracked one of his windows due to the cigar he was smoking. Sakura’s nose crinkled from the unpleasant smell that it produced.

**‘Looks like smoking will get you killed. Just not in the way you expect.’**

_‘Please don’t go developing a macabre sense of humor. It doesn’t suit yo-, well, us well.’_

Sakura wasn’t in the mood for laughing. She uncapped the flask she had stuck inside her hoodie’s pocket, checking the label to make sure it was the machin poison she had prepared under Takehana’s nose. They hadn’t tested it out on anyone, which only made Sakura relieved and nervous, if someone could feel those two emotions towards the same thing at the same time. She didn’t want anyone else to die as a guinea pig for her poisons; it was a waste, no matter if that guy Takehana killed was trash. But the idea that this wouldn’t work made her anticipate not only the failure of the mission but also Takehana’s wrath and that was something Sakura didn’t want in her life.

Gato was talking on some sort of device (Sakura couldn’t see that well) to someone.  Sakura didn’t know how to describe his voice but it gave the impression of oil and something unpleasant. He talked in a rude manner and judging by his room on the ship, it his obnoxiousness carried over to taste in furnishings. Everything seemed to convey his money and power, right down to the cigar he was smoking. Was there something to this marked man besides being a wealthy crime lord?

“Is the attack ready?”

Sakura’s breath stilled. _‘Attack?’_ Did that mean that they were attacking someone? Who was doing the attacking-

“Hey, Zabuza, are you listening to me?

Sakura willed herself to be quiet as she heard him continue. So he was talking to Zabuza, who was heading to attack someone. A trickle of fear went down her spine as she imagined Zabuza storming the house. By this time Tazuna and her sensei, along with Naruto and Sasuke, were probably en route to the bridge, so it would be useless to go attack the house.

Her fingers gripped the edge tighter. What if poor Tsunami and Inari were defenseless because she left to go kill Gato?  The mere thought of the kind woman being slain by the missing-nin made Sakura want to drop herself off the ship and charge back to protect her clients.

“I sent Zori and Waraji to go take care of his daughter. Deal with the ninja and you’ll get paid.”

_‘Tsunami-san is in danger.’_

Sakura couldn’t hear Zabuza’s muffled reply because Gato turned off the connection and sighed, taking a very long drag of his cigarette and blowing out the smoke in a thick stream in his mouth. He leaned his head back with his hands up to relax on the cushion of the couch as well. Sakura frowned at his relaxation, how unaware was he?

Regardless it all worked in her favor. Turning very slowly so her gasmask wouldn’t hit the metal, Sakura returned to taking care of the machin. She gave the little bottle a quick shake before forming the tiger seal for the mist. A small stream of her chakra went into the bottle, returning a second later with the liquid floating. Sakura was hanging on to the ship with her other hand and knees now and she prayed that this would work. Shakily, she added a little more of her chakra to the poison ball, compressing the liquid and making the molecules more heated. Within a minute of this Sakura was confident enough to send it through the small window opening.

If Gato noticed the sudden incoming cool air near him, he didn’t show it, just blew a smoke ring after a smoke ring. As soon as Sakura felt that the jutsu had gotten into the room fully and spread the poison throughout, she released her control. Gato hadn’t shown any signs of inhaling it yet, and most symptoms would appear much later, but Sakura couldn’t help but worry. What if it didn’t work and she had to go try this again? How many people would die for Gato to die?

Her thoughts were broken up as Gato started coughing. A minute went by and there was more unpleasant wheezing and hacking.

“Fucking –“ he said in the middle of coughing, “– cigar.” Sakura watched the older man put out the cigar on an ash tray and pick up the communicator as well.

“Ready the ambush. “ He said coolly, though his voice was a little harsh from the coughing he’d done a minute ago. “We’ll wait till Zabuza’s tired out with his fight with the Leaf Ninjas and then get rid of him and his masked brat. Position us near the bridge.”

Sakura had to steady herself. The bridge! Zabuza was attacking the bridge but there was another attack by those two samurai on Tazuna’s house. Not only that, but Gato was going to betray Zabuza.   Now that her job with Gato was done, though she couldn’t be sure, it was probably the best that she checked up on the house first, then making her way to support Kakashi-sensei. She threw the little bottle of machin down into the sea and stared at the back of Gato’s head for a couple of seconds. Her green eyes even looked sad before she climbed her way down.

* * *

_‘Damn it, why did they leave me behind? I thought Sakura-chan was supposed to stay behind today.’_

Now that he could manage tree-walking, Kakashi had given them a quick lesson in jumping branch from branch like most ninja, especially ones hailing from Konohagakure, did to get around. Naruto already was dexterous child so he hadn’t needed the course, but being able to reach greater heights more easily was a big help.

Greens and yellows dotted his vision as he jumped branch to branch, only stopping when he lost his footing. That it is until he heard a rustle in the trees. Quickly stopping, Naruto strained his eyes to see what was making the bush below quiver.

“Is that…blood?” Naruto wondered out loud as he jumped down to the ground to investigate. Near the bush he saw a weak and dying boar that looked like someone had put it through a grinder. It groaned weakly up at him before lying down at its side and closing its eyes. Feeling a little uncomfortable at the sight of the boar dying, Naruto looked at the surrounding area. Blood was spattered everywhere but even more so was that the surrounding foliage seemed to be cut up with something manmade and sharp. Naruto cast a quick glance at the dead boar and gulped.

“Wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever did that.” He said, walking back a little. The marks in the barks seemed to be heading back the way Naruto just came so that meant

“Shit!”

An orange blur was seen heading back to Tazuna’s house, muttering about being late.

* * *

“Inari, can you come help me with something?” Tsunami called from the kitchen. Naruto had left so sudden, leaving his clothes strewn about the house, that Tsunami was almost worried he hadn’t put pants on. The boy was so sunny and to be honest not the sharpest kunai in the set, but Tsunami found him extremely likable. Even with the arguments between the young ninja and her son, Tsunami found that at least Inari was drawn out his shell. Ever since Kaiza died, he’d been cooped up in his room just looking at the sea that once brought his father to him.

Even though he infuriated Inari to no belief, that yellow-haired boy from Hi no kuni was doing more to help her son than she had for the past year.

“Inari, please come down and help me with the dishes.” Tsunami leaned back on the counter to call to her son again. He wasn’t a bad kid, just always a bit of a loner, even before Kaiza had left. Kaiza had been such a source of life to their little family. She touched her neck in memory of his head on her shoulder.

“I’m in the bathroom now mom!”

Tsunami sighed. She didn’t know what he was doing in there but bottom line was that Inari would probably spend an hour there, doing everything from brushing his teeth or trying to make the bath full of bubbles again. Turning to her dishes, she lost herself in the process until her door was slashed down. To pieces.

She had barely heard the sound of metal pierce through her wooden door but she had heard the kick someone sent it a mere second after. The door crashed into the wall, causing Tsunami to shriek at the top of her lungs. Wood rained down on the floor, cracking as it was stepped on by the two men forcing entry into Tsunami’s house. The men weren’t familiar but looked dangerous, like Gato’s many thugs that he had brought on to the island. The bare-chested one looked more dangerous than the other, probably because of his bulging pectorals and tattooed biceps, but the other had a sharp stare. Both had swords at their hips. Tsunami was about to let out another scream when the man with the hat came forward and pushed her into the dish rack.

As her dishes cracked, Tsunami really did let out a scream and Inari came running down.

“Kaa-san!”

The sound of small fee pounding down on the staircase drew the Samurai’s attention.

“Eh, it’s a kid.” One of the samurai sounded slightly surprised as he mentioned this to his party. Inari glared down at the two men, eyes already teary and little body already shaking.

“Let my mom go!”

The tanner and bulkier of the two looked at the other and shrugged, completely ignoring Inari’s plea. “We only need one hostage. Should I cut him down?” His partner barely responded, just giving the other a grin. The bulkier man lifted his katana and made his way towards Inari.

“Wait!” Tsunami yelled after him. Both samurai turned back to look at her cringing on the floor. She snapped her head up to look at them intensely. Tsunami stared them down for a second before saying something that made her son’s mouth drop open.

“If you harm a hair on his head I’ll bite my tongue off and choke on my own blood so you won’t have a hostage! Don’t test me, I’ll do it.” Inari couldn’t believe his eyes. His mother, bleeding from a cut on her forehead, looked so strong, so intense. There was serious bite in her words.

“M-mom.” The two samurai shared a glance between themselves, a practice they seemed fond of doing, and the one in the hat chuckled as he withdrew a rope from his pocket and bent down to drag Tsunami up to her feet. He made short work of binding her arms and hands behind her.

“You have a hell of a feisty mother, brat. Be thankful for that or else you’d be breathing your last breath.” The samurai holding his mother punctuated the other’s point by shoving Tsunami forward harshly. Inari sniveled and crouched down as he saw his mother being led out by the two swordsmen, snot running down his face as he squeeze his head with his fingers.

His mother’s name was on his lips as he tried to console the fact that she was being led away, probably to never be seen again and that he was watching it happening. The guilt in those thoughts made bile rise up in his throat.

“I-I’m sorry, M-mom. I c-couldn’t b-be a...a hero.”

Suddenly his sobs, both mental and physical, were stopped by the harsh words of some blond kid from the Leaf.

_“You little sissy!”_

_“Coward!”_

Tsunami threw one last glance back to her house, wondering if she would ever lay eyes on it again, or on her son. The edge of a sword thwacked her knees the moment she looked back.

“Keep walking lady!”

One of the swordsmen eyed her and let out a few low laughs.

“Don’t tempt me sweetheart. Looking at that pretty skin of yours makes me want to cut it.”

Tsunami swallowed quietly, wondering if she would have the dignity of a quick and undisgraceful death. With these men, who knew? The smell of saltwater, a constant in her life, suddenly came to her stronger than she ever remembered it to be, knowing that this smell would never grace her senses again. Rough hands pushed her along the deck and she wondered about her son.

Inari. He was such a little boy and yet he’d been through so much. The people of Wave were used to harshness, living on an island with little resources and money. There were no pretentions, no large aspirations among their people. Like a rock, Inari would weather the storm of her death. He’d survived his real father dying from an altercation when his son was a toddler and he survived Kaiza’s death. He’d be fine, even as an orphan.

These are the lies mothers tell themselves to keep from going mad.

The patter of tiny feet reached her ears and this time she did look back fully turning despite the hold her captors had on her. Tsunami watched as her son came out from the house and faced the three of them. He straight up at her, face red and messy with snot and Tsunami wished to run to him and wipe his face away, assure him everything would be fine.

“Wait.”

He looked a cross between fierce and pitiful, with the teary face and balled up fists.

“Inari!” The housewife cried out, unsure of what to say that would get him back inside the house, away from the men that would want to kill him. Inari didn’t react to his mother’s cry, just took a step forward.

“It’s that kid again.” The hatted swordsman to the left of her mumbled, turning around fully to face her son. The other one followed suit and Tsunami got chills down her spine.

No. Anything but that.

She didn’t want to see her son killed in front of her. The black-haired woman pulled her arm against the rope binding her hands to her body, wincing as it stung her. If she could just get o-

“Get away from my mom.”

And before Tsunami could yell at him not to, Inari let out a cry and ran at them. The heavily muscled hired sword groaned about stupid kids and drew his sword.

“Cut him.”

“Sure.”

Tsunami let out a cry as Inari got closer and they readied their blades and the figure of her son coming to rescue her got closer and closer. Her eyes shut as the men lifted their blades and swung down.

Crack!

She felt hands around her body, not as rough or large as that of the men who took her from her house. These were smaller hands and they lifted her down with ease and within a second she could feel herself being placed on the deck with Inari staring down at her with shining eyes.

The sound of wood hitting the deck buzzed in her ears but all she could see was her son’s crying eyes.

“Inari.”

“ _Haha_.”

There was another beside her, but Tsunami gave him little thought until he spoke up.

“Sorry for being late,” Naruto spoke up as he got up from his squat and turned back to face the ronin he’d just duped. “But a hero usually arrives at the last minute, yanno?”

Inari’s eyes widened before he softly said the boy’s name.

Naruto looked back at the family for a second and grinned.

“Great job, Inari. Thanks to you distracting them I was able to save your mom.”

“Well if it isn’t one of the loser ninja that Tazuna hired.”

The rogue swordsmen seemed to have gotten their bearings and finally responded to the young ninja’s presence. Tsunami craned her neck to see what they were doing. Naruto took out a kunai.

“Are you going to be alright?” asked Inari as he placed his hands on his mother’s shoulder. Naruto nodded and faced the two rogue ninja. Strangely, Inari didn’t feel worried at all. Perhaps it was the compliment the young shinobi had given him or maybe it was the resolve he’d gathered in order to save his mother. For once in a long time, he had a feeling things were going to be alright.

The two swordsman charged at the orange-wearing shinobi, only to be knocked down by two shadow clones waiting under dock. Two splashes were heard as rogue swordsmen fell into the sea and Naruto finally turned back to the two Wave civilians with a grin.

Inari was stunned at how simply the other had managed to dispose of them. He watched as the blond knelt down and slipped a kunai underneath the ropes binding his mother, slicing through them quickly. Tsunami patted down her shirt the moment her hands were free.

“Kaa-san!”

His mother’s fingers threaded through his hair, lightly scratching his scalp in a comforting manner as she enveloped him. The black-haired boy rested his head on his mother’s shoulder, not willing to break the hug.

“My little hero.” He heard her whisper quietly and it seems Naruto heard that as well, for his grin was replaced by a small smile as he watched the little family reunion. Inari could feel the tears prick at the corner of his eyes again, so he shifted his hand to rub at his eyes.

“I-I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to cry.” said Inari, still wiping at his eyes which were now leaking tears again. He could feel his mother’s hand move to his face.

“Watchya talkin’ about?”

“Huh?” Inari stopped rubbing his eyes to look up at Naruto, grin back in place and shining.

“It’s okay to cry.” Another hand landed on his shoulder. “If you’re happy.”

“Naruto, look out!”

Inari’s happy moment was stopped by a clash of a sword and a kunai. Naruto’s eyes widened as he looked up to see that the taller swordsman had gotten out of the water and had tried to attack him from the back, only to be stopped by Sakura and her kunai. The swordsman pressed down harder, his superior strength and heavily tattooed bulging muscles bringing the kunai down inch by inch. Naruto rolled out of the way, allowing Sakura to kick the man before jumping back a step.

To her relief, Naruto had already moved Inari and Tsunami and seemed intent on getting into the fray.  She started doing the hand signs for Kirigakure no Jutsu.

“Naruto, guard Tsunami and Inari, I’ll take care of this!”

Naruto looked like he really wanted to argue but before he could, mist rose up from the water and blanketed the docks and the house, making it hard to see. Sakura focused, readying her kunai as she navigated through the mist into the place she last seen the tattooed guy. Sure enough, she could hear light cursing about “little ninja wenches” and the sound of a sword swing, as if the man was trying to cut the mist.

She could hear Inner snicker about dumb swordsmen, but unlike her inner, Sakura didn’t feel all that confident with this man. He was two of her, literally, and his biceps were bigger than her face. His blade looked really sharp too, and she had seen what it had done to that pig she found on her way back to the house. Like usual, direct engagement was dumb.

‘What to do, what to do…’

She stepped to side, relying on the mist to cover her (though her red dress would probably make that harder, even though bright colors, contrary to popular belief, weren’t the worst thing in the world for a shinobi).

“Sakura-chan? Is he down? What’s going on?”

Sakura almost smacked her face, _again_. Trust Naruto to give away his cover, now the man would figure out where their clients were. She was going to drag Naruto into stealth courses the moment they got back home. The sound of the sword swinging stopped and footsteps walked a couple of feet to the right of, in the direction of Naruto’s voice.

‘He’s making his move I guess.’

Sakura tiptoed behind him, waiting for her chance. She heard the footsteps stop and steadied herself.

“Gotcha, you little runt-“

The man’s foolish decision to speak as he swung down his sword was his undoing, as he never finished the sentence due to blood gushing out of his mouth in spurts and the kunai stabbed in his back. Sakura twisted the kunai, digging it in deeper.

“S-Sakura-chan?” Naruto must have been a foot or two in front of them but she couldn’t see through the mist. The man began to slump backwards and Sakura pulled out her kunai before jumping back.  A loud crash was heard as the man fell to the floor.

Sakura released the mist, allowing the four of them to see the dying man with blood pouring out him. Tsunami immediately covered her son’s eyes and turned him away, while Naruto looked a little shaken. Sakura’s green eyes looked down at her kunai, now covered in blood. Earlier she had told herself that her first life would be taken today, through poison, but it seemed that instead she’d be delivering the blow herself.

Her feet moved of their own accord to kneel down and close the man’s eyes with her left hand, right hand still gripping the bloodied kunai tight. Naruto nodded at her, mouthing his thanks to her.

“Thanks for saving me, Sakura.” No -chan this time, though Sakura could see why he didn’t add it. This was probably his first dead body as well. Though they had desensitization courses at the Academy, something about a combat killing was different.

Sakura shook her head. Truthfully, and she hadn’t mentioned this to anyone because there was no need, but she had already helped Naruto once. When Zabuza had first thrown his sword at them, Sakura had crashed into Naruto immediately, afraid that he wouldn’t dodge. It had been mere instinct, probably one of her quickest reflexes. She’d known Sasuke would be alright; Naruto was inattentive. That moment had passed by quickly and as they ended in the thick of battle, she’d felt no need to mention it once they got to Tazuna’s house. It was pure instinct to protect him.

“Hey now, Naruto- _chan_ , I’m sure you’d do the same.” She put her empty hand on her hip, cocking to the side a little. Then her face became all serious as she looked at the body again. It seemed that Waraji, the man she had killed, was truly dead. She grimaced down and then looked at Naruto as if to ask what she should do with it. Naruto raise his hands and made a couple of bunshin to roll the man off the docks, with one taking his sword beforehand. Sakura watched as the body sunk into water immediately and with a bit hesitation, threw in her kunai with it.

Naruto touched her shoulder lightly in comfort before turning to Tsunami and Inari. Tsunami had stood up, holding her son’s hand.

“I can’t thank you enough…”

“No need, Tsunami-san, we just did our jobs, y’know?”

Sakura felt a chill run down her spine as she remembered why she had been trying to find Naruto anyway. She’d gotten distracted with finding a boar carcass and then saving Naruto had purged it from her mind.

“Naruto!” Sakura spun around fast enough to see Naruto jump at her sudden shout.

“Wha-..”

Sakura grabbed him by the sleeve and kicked off, looking back to shout something at Tsunami.

“Tsunami-san, Gato’s men are at the bridge attacking our team. Get yourselves to safety!”

“Whoa, wait, really?”

Tsunami and Inari watched as a pink and orange blur ran away from them.

“So those are shinobi?” Inari said quietly.

Tsunami wiped a tear away.

“Yeah, they are.”

* * *

The first c-rank of a genin team was a wildcard. Kakashi knows this well, despite never having a genin team of his own. Even with the test they had to give each and every rookie, it wasn’t until the first C-rank that sensei were aware of their teams abilities, the way they really worked in the field and under pressure. It was all fun and games inside the gates, usually, but once fledging ninja left the relative safety and comfort of their homes, that’s when potential could really be realized.

Or that is what other Genin-sensei told him.

Kakashi hadn’t really expected to see that much growth but then again he hadn’t expected to be facing A-rank missing nin. Fate was just kept swinging surprises at him. His cute little students swung the bat at him once in a while too. Naruto and Sasuke working so well to free him with a very solid battle tactic, he still wasn’t sure which of them came up with it on the fly. And then Sakura showed such strength when he’d been recovering from his injuries, even infiltrating enemy headquarters for them to learn about any threats to Tazuna.

If someone had told Kakashi that day on the roof that in a few months that it was like that the knucklehead could be displaying advanced battlefield tactical thinking or that the fangirl could be a budding infiltration or assassination specialist (the Mist technique was after all perfect for that) he would have dropped the Icha Icha book he’d been reading and then forever ignored said person.

That said, where was said fangirl? She’d been skittish this week, yes, going off to train in different parts and coming back with solid intelligence, but she had never shirked her duties before. Of course, Naruto was back in at the house watching over Tsunami and Inari, but chakra exhaustion would get the best of him, even if he did have a chakra demon inside him. Kakashi eyed Sasuke. If Zabuza struck today, he’s sure he can handle him, but Sasuke might have trouble fighting off anyone Zabuza might send to them. To put it simply, this was not the best day Sakura could have chosen to be late.

At least it was a nice day. Kakashi thumbed through his Icha Icha Paradise haphazardly, only giving the appearance that he was reading in order to appear relaxed. Sasuke looked slightly bored, though he kept his hand near his kunai holster. Good. The young Uchiha was prepared for the possibility of a fight. In all honesty, it was the dark-haired boy who understood the realities of their shinobi world the best.

His eye twitched with that thought and Kakashi was reminded of how he never wanted them to know those realities. His cute little genin were that – cute. Even Sasuke with his cold demeanor, yes he was disturbed, but there was something pure about him. He had been hurt incredibly, yes, but he was a hurt child, not a man. And even though he swore to be an avenger, to kill Itachi, Kakashi could see in the way he fought against Naruto that there wasn’t yet the malice that would sometimes take hold in those who walked the path of the avenger.

And that’s why his cute little genin were cute. They were like strange seeds that he was planting, unsure of what they’d grow to be, but he’d nurture them all the same.

Icha Icha’s prose was really affecting his mind recently.

As they approached the bridge, Kakashi noticed some mist blanketing the water, not unusual since Wave country had its misty days, but it would provide suitable cover for enemies waiting to strike. There was nothing like a natural cover for stealth in aiding assassinations; he wondered if his students were aware of that fact.

But then Kakashi noticed something. For one thing, it was quiet. Too quiet. Eerily quiet. This was his first time with Tazuna at the bridge but he’d gathered that it would be a noisy place generally. But no sounds of construction or working mens’ chatter punctured the morning air.

He could see Tazuna shift as well.

“Are they taking a break?” The middle-aged man said as he scratched his head in confusion. Neither Kakashi nor Sasuke answered their client though the answer was a resounding “no”.

The other thing he had noticed earlier was the faint smell of blood. Now Kakashi didn’t have the best sense of smell, especially among those who specialized in it, like the Inuzuka, but he had been privy to enough slaughter in his career that he could tell when was approaching a particularly grisly scene. Like now, for instance.

“Be on your guard!” He barked out to Sasuke who immediately took out his kunai and stepped in front of Tazuna defensively. Tazuna only blinked, already pale with thoughts of what may be causing the lack of sound.

As the bridge came into view, so did the bodies littering it.

“No.” Tazuna whispered, his voice sounding hoarse and much older than his age.

Kakashi cast a glance to see how Sasuke was taking this sudden slaughter, but the genin seemed to be entirely focused on protecting their client. Good. This was definitely not the time to be having spontaneous traumatic flashbacks.

And now that the mist was rolling in, signaling the presence of their enemy, now wasn’t the time to be missing from duty either.

_‘Sakura, Naruto, where the hell are you two?’_

* * *

Sasuke was shaking. His heart was beating fast in his chest, his arms vibrating, and his breaths were quick. And it wasn’t in fear but to the drumbeat of war. Elation blossomed in the pit of his stomach at the mere thought of facing foes. Another chance to prove himself, to show he could, this was really what he lived for, what he had been bred for. He felt like a rubber band when it was being pulled back; he was ready to spring forward with so much force.

If Kakashi would let him.

The deadlast and the fangirl, as Sasuke sometimes referred to them in his mind at times, were not present. And while the training he had been doing had certainly helped, Sasuke was not reckless enough to risk the client by leaving his side when neither Naruto nor Sakura were there to protect him from harm.

“So Sakura’s intel was right. I knew he was still alive, he just couldn’t wait for round two.” He heard Kakashi say this from beside him, closer to Tazuna. The mist rolled unto the bridge thick and cool. Sasuke’s heart began to beat louder with the realization he couldn’t see a thing.

“Sorry, I kept you waiting, Kakashi.” Zabuza’s disembodied baritone called out from the mist. “I see you still have one of those brats with you, and look, he’s _trembling_.” Sasuke’s eyes widened as he noticed a slight movement and the faint sound of metal clinking disturbed his heart’s beating.

 “How pathetic.” The voice was right in front of him. Sasuke stopped shaking and smiled at his foe through the mist. He could hear a startled noise from his foe.

“I’m trembling from _excitement_.”

“Go ahead, Sasuke.”

And the rubber band snapped.

“I can see it.” thought Sasuke.

Sasuke jumped into the air, his kunai flashing before the Zabuza clones could even move. It slid through the first like butter and before it could dispel, Sasuke pushed himself off it and catapulted towards the other, disposing of it. He made equally short work of the other two, relishing in each splash of chakra infused water that his kunai caused. He returned back to his place in front of Tazuna, giving the mist in front of them a cool look and a smile as droplets of water flew around.

“Oooh, so you could see that they were water clones, huh?” The sound of two pairs of sandals approaching became louder and louder and the mist thinned to show two opponents, Zabuza and someone else. “Looks like that brat’s improved.” Zabuza closed his arms over his chest, making his large biceps pop even more.

“You might have a rival, Haku.”

Haku walked into an area with thinner mist and let the ninja see him. Sasuke clenched his teeth at the sight of the masked young man who just proved that he really was working for Zabuza.

“So it seems.” And the masked shinobi cocked his head in the direction of Sasuke. Both sides eyed each other, waiting for the other to make the first move now that Sasuke had proven himself worthy to be pitted against Zabuza’s comrade. Kakashi broke the silence first.

“Well, well, looks like it was a pretty good performance you put up there, with nice little mask to complete it.” Sasuke noted how Kakashi’s lazy drawl seemed slower today with a hint of surprise. It wasn’t like Kakashi to take someone as strong as Zabuza lightly, so perhaps he was trying to…

“That’s it,” Sasuke thought to himself, grimacing as he understood why Kakashi was doing so. They were definitely in trouble with numbers. They had no idea the amount of skill the masked-ninja possessed, except that it was probably in the realm of “skilled” and leaving Tazuna without a guard was practically giving Zabuza Tazuna’s head on a platter. Kakashi was stalling so Naruto and Sakura could get here. Now understanding what game his teacher was playing, Sasuke joined in.

“Phony. I bet you guys pull this scam constantly.” Sasuke’s voice projected confidently over the bridge. Neither of their foes moved an inch.

“Kakashi-sensei, let me fight him.” Sasuke added, making sure that the two across the bridge would hear him. “I’m not a fan of phonies.” Kakashi didn’t object and Sasuke wasn’t stupid enough to drop his guard and look back for a second, not that Kakashi’s face was expressive or anything, to tell whether his teacher was displeased. The two Mist seemed to be conversing between themselves and out of Sasuke’s hearing range. The moment came and went and Zabuza looked straight at him, dark eyes piercing even with the mist screwing with visibility. Sasuke raised his kunai again.

“You think you’re something kid?”

Sasuke opened his mouth by a centimeter in surprise as a literal whirlwind came towards him.

“What?”

It seemed that the masked kid was extremely fast, his motions a complete blur as he spun to the Leaf Ninja. Sasuke braced himself protectively, shielding his body with his forearms. Senbon clashed with kunai, before they broke apart and charged at each other again. Sasuke observed as each of his lunges was met with and spin and counter from the enemy. It was strange but Sasuke swore he was keeping up with movements, though he was barely thinking as his body naturally drove him in the battle.

After all this is what he was made for.

Another attempt at stabbing the masked kid was stopped by the other’s senbon and over the sound of scraping metal the boy addressed him. It was a much gentler voice than Sasuke expected, awkward but measured in tone.

“I do not want to kill you, but you won’t back off, right?” Sasuke almost laughed. There it was. _Weakness_.

“Are you an idiot?” He asked, slightly mocking in his tone. He honestly expected someone that worked with Zabuza to be more ruthless, if not downright sociopathic like the swordsman himself. The other boy ignored the question as he pressed down on Sasuke’s kunai a little more insistently.

“Just like I thought, but you won’t be able to keep up with me with my next attack. And I’m already two steps ahead of you.”

“Two steps ahead?” Sasuke repeated, unsure of what was exactly he meant by that.

Strangely, even with the literal battle of steel against steel, the masked shinobi decided to explain.

“One, there’s water on the ground.” Sasuke’s eyes wandered down for a second to see that yes they were standing in a puddle. Bad move considering another senbon came towards him, which he blocked a few mere inches from his face. The boy’s hand retreated instantly.

“Two, I am keeping one of your arms busy. Therefore you can only block and take my attacks.”

Sasuke watched as the boy’s free hand went up to eye level and began making one-handed seals in wonder. The hand movements were also extraordinarily quick and for the first time since fighting this boy, Sasuke felt outclassed and inexperienced.

“ _Hijutsu: Sensatsu Suishou._ ”

Water rose up into the air along with chakra. It floated in a spiral before it began thinning into smaller particles, forming something tube-like. By the time the sharp ends were forming Sasuke’s mind was whirring, thinking back to training this past week.

The feeling of chakra being spread throughout the body was a strange one. At times it felt both hot and cool, and there was always a strange tingle in the area with the newly diverted chakra. Sasuke felt this on the soles of his feet instantly and jumped just ask the needles were being sent down. Wind blew against his back as he rose into the air and took advantage of the height to send three shuriken down at the masked boy. He dodged them of course, but stood still a second too long as if trying to figure out how.

Sasuke never gave them the chance.

“You’re pretty slow.” He said as moved behind the boy’s back to attack him. His attacks were blocked but with the boy now on the defensive. Sasuke gave him a smirk.

“Now you can only block and receive _my_ attacks.”

The boy spun around to block Sasuke’s right arm, and then dodged a thrown kunai, not realizing that Sasuke had just been waiting for him to tilt his head in the range of his leg. One strong kick later and Haku was thrown on his back several feet away, landing one foot from Zabuza, who threw Sasuke an incredulous look.

“Looks like my speed is better.”

“You see, Zabuza, you can’t put down my team because we have children on it.” Kakashi’s voice rang out from the back, a small sense of pride in the usually lazy tone. “Sasuke is the village’s top rookie. My kunoichi Sakura is probably going to be an infiltration expert and the other one likes to show off and surprise people. He’s the knucklehead ninja, Naruto.”

Zabuza laughed.

“If your brats are so good, where are they?”

He chuckled again, obviously expecting no answer as he looked back down at the masked boy.

“Haku, if you keep fighting like this you’ll be defeated.”

“I know.”

The boy rose to his feet again, but this time with something tangible pouring out of him. Sasuke narrowed his eyes as one of the currents coming out of the boy came near his face.

“Cold-d air?”

 The mist seemed to freezing and Sasuke could feel the goose bumps on his skin. Whether from the extreme change in temperature – it was later in April! – or from the weird vibe this was giving him he didn’t know. The sound of something cracking behind him startled him enough to look back and he could see that it was ice forming some sort of strange structure. Within seconds he was surrounded by strange, flat ice formations.

“ _Hijutsu: Makyou Hyoushou_ ”

The masked ninja took a step, and then he literally melted into the ice and at once Sasuke could see that these were mirrors as his image was reflected all around him. He spun, kunai at the ready, trying to see where the real image was. He could hear running outside the mirror dome and wondered if it was Kakashi coming. But Sasuke’s attention was back on the masked boy who melted into each ice mirror.

“Let’s begin. I’ll show you my true speed!”

Before Sasuke could even blink, two senbon had ripped through his shirt, with only one actually nicking him. He gasped out of pain.

“Sasuke!”

Kakashi’s yell did little for Sasuke who was trying to shield himself from the large amounts of senbon being thrown at him from basically every direction he could think of. One of the senbon struck his kunai, sending it clattering to the floor. Blood started flying along with the senbon with some of the needles sticking in him. Sasuke’s earlier confidence melted away, replaced with fear and pain.

And then it stopped. Sasuke fell to the ground to see Haku holding a kunai in wonder. Not even a second after, a barrage of kunai and shuriken rained down up on the mirrors, causing the shinobi to fall out of one of the mirrors.

A poof was heard, followed by two voices.

“Sorry we’re late, sensei, we had to deal with something.” Sakura’s apologetic tone could be heard.

“Ne, Sakura-chan, don’t apologize! Heroes are generally late. Look at Kakashi-sensei”

“Why that’s absolutely right Naruto.” Kakashi sounded relieved.

“Heh,” sighed Sasuke as he smiled despite the pain.

‘I’m on a team with total idiots.’

“Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura, reporting for duty!”

* * *

“Now that I’m here, everything is going to be fine. The main character of a story usually shows up and beats the bad guy in a jiffy, yanno?”

Sakura just shook her head at her teammate’s loquaciousness. It was Naruto, after all. In some weird annoying way, he was charming the way he was.

“Alright, _Kage-Bu-_!”

Zabuza’s kunai flew at Naruto before he could even finish the name of his attack and the seals required for it.

“Dodge it, Naruto!” yelled Kakashi.

Sakura’s eyes widened as he basically stood there like a trapped deer with a rolling caravan headed for it. She was nowhere up to the speed she would need to get to him and pull him out safely too, unlike Sasuke, but her feet moved of their own accord to where Naruto was, only to see senbon come at the kunai, that looked like they were heading for Naruto but deflected those kunai. A collective gasp rose up from everyone. She managed to grab onto the edge of his jacket and pull him to the side almost immediately.

Her grip tightened on his jacket as she spun him around to make sure he saw her anger-filled eyes.

“You absolute idiot.” She whispered.

“Oi, what kind of idiot tries to execute a jutsu in front of an enemy?”

Sakura glanced towards her sensei, currently in a standoff of some type with Zabuza. His body posture was tight, like he was ready to go off in a second’s notice and Sakura could see why. Tazuna was wide open. She bit her lip. No wonder Kakashi was mad, he wasn’t even finished with scolding Naruto.

“Shinobi are to practice the art of deception! When you execute a technique, you must do it while the enemy is not looking. Practice the art of surprise and think outside the box. You just made yourself target practice.”

Kakashi’s lecture made Sakura pause and remember a few words that stuck with her since they had come to this land.

“Shinobi are nowhere as deceptive as they claim to be.” Sakura said, mostly to herself.

Naruto looked up from the bridge (he looked sad at the scolding) and gave her a look that spelled confusion. Sakura only looked past him and at her sensei and Zabuza, both of whom had also passed to listen to her.

“You do not need flashy techniques or even strong ones to kill someone. You need them to defeat someone in battle. There is a difference. Killing can be quick and…easier.” The sight of the swordsman’s body came to mind as she finished her statement and she could feel Naruto reaching to pat her shoulder but she jerked herself away, just looking at her sensei and their enemy with wide but serious eyes. Zabuza narrowed his eyes.

“Sakura, you-?” Kakashi’s only visible eye was very expressive and even from far away she could tell he was shocked by her statement. His question was cut off by Zabuza’s laughter.

“Ah, so this is the kunoichi who might become an infiltration expert? Well she’s certainly got the right mind set for it. So, little girl, who did you kill today? Was it your first? One of Gato’s little mercenaries?”

Sakura bit her lip and looked away from Zabuza. The way he was posing the question made her feel uncomfortable.

“Do not answer him, Sakura.” Kakashi’s voice was softer than the usual tone he gave commands with. Sakura wondered what he was thinking about all this.

Zabuza made a movement with his hand and the masked boy finally stood up.

“Now, now, Kakashi. I have enough time to chat and kill you. So don’t get in the way or I’ll tell Haku to turn your top rookie brat into a pincushion. Now,” and once more he gestured, but towards her, “Tell me, little girl, about your first kill.”

Sakura eyed Kakashi, unsure of what to do. Perhaps her sensei needed time to think of what to do, time to set up a plan. The longer they distracted Zabuza, the better the chances, right? Gulping, Sakura opened her mouth to narrate.

“It was a rogue swordsman that Gato sent to take Tsunami-san hostage. Naruto had knocked him off the docks earlier but he managed to sneak back on us. I hid us in mist and then used it to tiptoe behind him and stab him in the back before he could find our clients.”

It was concise and to the point, just like the D-rank mission reports Sakura was used to giving her Hokage or whoever was attending the mission desk at that point. But apparently it wasn’t enough for Zabuza who gestured to Haku again and he slid back into the mirrors. Sakura clenched her fists.

“I told you what you want!”

“No, you said what you would to a kage. You said nothing about how you felt while doing it. If you cared, or if you enjoyed it.” The way he said “enjoy” in that question made her feel filthy, like no matter her answer she’d still end up with mud on her face. His eyes were shining with a sick glee.

“Are you really playing mind games with my genin?”

There was sweat beading in Sakura’s palms. A soft groan was emitted behind her, in the mirror house, by Sasuke and she could picture him clearly, hurting and bleeding all over the bridge.

_‘Sasuke.’_ She thought. _‘This is for Sasuke-kun.’_

“I didn’t enjoy it.” Sakura announced coldly. “It was quick and he was dead before I could even think about it. But I don’t regret it. If it could save Naruto and Inari-kun and Tsunami-san, then it was what I needed to do. It was what I had to do.”

Silence met her words. Sakura’s resolve faded instantly, melting like the sweat pouring out of her palms. She wondered if she said the wrong thing, if Sasuke was going to be killed, if Kakashi was going to be hurt.

“To save?” Zabuza repeated.

“That’s right. I won’t let my comrades die.”

“You Leaf-ninja….” And then he laughed, though as his chest shook his arms were steady at holding in the range of Kakashi’s neck.

“When I was nine years old, I killed everyone in the graduating class. I got a head start in our curriculum. Because that’s what Kiri was, what it is now. Saving people? You kill because you are ordered to, and eventually because you want to. That’s what a shinobi is, brats. At some point your Kage will give an order for you to kill your friends, your family because that’s what your duty as a tool is. What will make you kill then?”

“That’s a lie!”

Naruto yelled out.

“Hokage-Jiji would never ever order us to do something like that! He’s a kind man and he believes in the Will of Fire, he’d never do something like that!”

Zabuza stopped laughing. “If you think that old monkey Kage of yours’ never ordered a shinobi to slit the throat of a comrade you’re asking for the world to teach you a painful lesson. In this world you’re either the weapon or the wielder. Haku, I know you tried to stop me from gutting the kid, but I’ll forgive you if you take care of these brats.”

Haku bowed his head. “As you wish, Zabuza-san. Let me deal with these children on my own.” And he cocked his head at Naruto in particular, who narrowed his eyes in fury.

“What was that?”

Sakura glanced to Kakashi and Sasuke. She was sure that if Kakashi was left to his own devices he’d defeat Zabuza, but with Tazuna unprotected, Kakashi was stuck. And then there was Sasuke who might need medical attention now and Sakura, so busy with poisons, hadn’t thought to bring some low quality medical salve. And that boy, Haku Zabuza called him, if he was good enough to bring down Sasuke, then Naruto wouldn’t do any good with beating him. They needed a plan.

Sakura’s decision was made.

“Naruto,” she murmured under breath so that boy would not hear. “Try to get a bunch of clones to Tazuna but remember what we told you: deception.”

Naruto didn’t answer her; his eyes were focused on the masked boy in front of them.

“Oi, I’m gonna beat you first then! You’re that masked ninja, how dare you pull one over us?” Naruto’s loud voice sounded indignant, providing no clue that he heard her instructions. Sakura could only hope her teammate was working out a plan to do as she asked.

“I’m sorry.”

Sakura blinked. He was sorry?

“But your teacher said this too, the role of a ninja is to be deceptive and find an opening. Please do not take it personally.” Sakura frowned. This guy…was not what she expected from someone working with Zabuza.

Before Naruto could even respond, a kunai flew at Haku, one that he easily allowed to miss him and disappear into the mist. Naruto made a surprised noise, as if only now noticing Sasuke, who was sitting on his knees.

“I didn’t forget about you.” Haku turned his head in the direction of Sasuke. “I would preferred if you had laid there quietly but that might be too much to hope for. Very well, I’ll deal with you first.”

“O-Oi!”

“Naruto-kun, I’ll deal with you later.” And he melted back into the ice. Within a second, Sasuke’s groans of pain were heard and Naruto let his mouth open wide and made a start for the ice, only stopped by Sakura’s grabbing of his jacket.

“Stop.”

“But Sasuke-“

“We can’t help from there, moron. Not yet, anyway.” More cries of pain were heard and Sakura was so close to letting Naruto go and jumping in herself, but she couldn’t. The textbook ninja in her was railing against the idea and she knew why.

“Naruto, the…?”

Her teammate nodded and took out some kunai from his pouch, handing them to her and prompting a questioning look from Sakura. He winked, bright blue eyes flashing with mischief.

“A bunch of extra sharp things won’t hurt when you go to protect Tazuna-san, yanno?” Naruto’s plan started to make sense in her mind. So the five extra bunshin were disguised and if she managed to get to Tazuna safely, she’d be able to at least have a buffer between Tazuna and Zabuza if she stepped in a helped Kakashi.

“Got it. Thanks. Okay,” and she lowered her voice once more, “I’ll give you some mist so you can sneak in. Either grab Sasuke or get the enemy while he’s distracted.”

Naruto’s mouth opened wide to probably loudly agree with her idea but she clamped her fingers over it. “Quietly.”

Naruto nodded with her hand still on his mouth. Kakashi and Zabuza were still talking in distance, with Zabuza’s back faced to them. This could only be a fortunate factor in Sakura’s mind.

“ _Kirigakure no Jutsu!_ ” She said under her breath, and it came easier with the mist already in the air, meaning she just had use her chakra to move it around. She made it settle thickly around the dome before it gradually seeped between the cracks of the mirror. Naruto threw one last glance at her before using a cloud of mist to sneak inside and Sakura wondered if this would be the last time she’d see him alive.

_‘No dying, Naruto. You too, Sasuke.’_ thought Sakura as she finally released the jutsu and turned back to stare at Kakashi and Zabuza, who were still focused on themselves. Not willing to wait for Zabuza to notice the changes going on with Haku, Sakura ran to the railing and flipped herself over, sticking to the side with her chakra. Walking horizontally was much harder and Sakura founded herself cheating and using beams and scaffolding to get to the other side of the bridge. It reminded her of the day she ran across the water to get herbs for Takehana. Though it was a few days ago, it felt like ages. Today had been a very long day and Sakura was already feeling drained, thanks to her abysmal stamina.

At least her control was good enough that she could climb bridges. She hung on the side of the bridge near where Tazuna was, not yet willing to show herself and instead listened to the conversation.

“I’m sorry but I’m going to have to finish this quickly.” That sounded like Kakashi to her and she strained her neck to see what he was doing. His hand was on his headband, like he was going to pull it up.

_‘The Sharingan! So he’s going to fight Zabuza now.’_ Sakura thought to herself.

Sakura wasn’t the only one predicting his use of the Sharingan. Zabuza instantly drew a kunai and ran to Kakashi, blade aiming for his eye. A scream tore out of Sakura’s throat, blowing her hiding spot as she saw blood fall from the impact.

“Even if you say it is unoriginal, are you still scared of my Sharingan, Zabuza?”

Zabuza chuckled. “You shouldn’t show your techniques twice to a shinobi.”

“Be thankful you’re the only ninja alive to see it twice. And there won’t be a third time.” Kakashi’s blood kept trickling slowly, and Sakura wondered if he’d be able to back that statement up with an injured hand. Sakura flipped herself over the railing, kunai in hand, and looked at Kakashi for orders.

Zabuza continued the conversation.

“Even if you defeat me, you won’t beat Haku.” That statement drew surprise and worry from Sakura, who turned to look at the ice dome, where the sounds of battle were still being heard.

_‘Just how strong is that guy?’_

“I’ve spent years making sure he was an advanced tool. His techniques surpass my own. He is a very good tool, unlike those scraps you carry around.” Zabuza’s boasting was punctuated by the yells of a dozen Narutos and Sasuke.

Kakashi looked like he was about to roll his eyes.

“There’s nothing more boring than hearing someone boast. Let’s start.” Kakashi finished revealing his Sharingan.

Zabuza looked thrilled and formed the tiger seal. Sakura gasped as she realized the technique he was using was _Kirigakure no Jutsu_. The mist got thicker in this part of the bridge and Zabuza’s body disappeared from view.

“Sensei?”

“Sakura, don’t leave Tazuna’s side.” He gave his orders and began looking around. Sakura ran to where their client was, and slid in front of him.

“Tazuna-san, please don’t leave my side.” She took out another kunai and planted the two she had into the ground before forming the sign for _Kirigakure no Jutsu_ to make the area around them clearer and less misty. It was hard work and with all she did Sakura was feeling the drain. Because of all this mist, the technique consumed less chakra than it usually would, but using chakra to manipulate it from feet away was hard and she could feel her coils strain. The pink-haired girl could hear muffled talking before seeing a dark shadow in the foggy area being thrown back. Was that Kakashi?

She took out another kunai from the set Naruto had given her, third in a set of four. Those had their usage but she wouldn’t be able to control them. If Kakashi was thrown back it was likely Zabuza would try and take advantage of the moment to assassinate Tazuna.

A strange noise startled Tazuna and her, and she looked back to see Zabuza raising his sword to strike Tazuna. She threw the kunai at him just as her sensei appeared to shield them from his sword, the projectile flying over his shoulder and straight at the sword.

“Too slow!” Zabuza yelled as he brought the sword down on her sensei’s body.

But instead of the sword swinging down and blood spurting, a loud ‘poof’ was heard as the impact dispelled the clone disguised as a kunai. Sakura grinned, happy that her plan with Naruto was working. The sword was a few mere inches aware from Kakashi’s shoulder.

“Looks like you almost had me there, Zabuza. But I guess my ‘scraps’ have my back. Good job, Sakura.”

Sakura, glowing from the praise, impulsively stuck her tongue out at Zabuza, who narrowed his eyes at her in anger.

“I’m getting tired of you and your brats. Haku needs to hurry up and kill them so I can send you to your death knowing you failed them.” And he left the mist-less part of the bridge once more, leaving Kakashi, Sakura and Tazuna.

“Sasuke…and Naruto. They won’t lose to that kid. He’s wrong.” Sakura said out loud.

**‘Hell no they won’t!’**

“You’re right, Sakura. I believe in them too. This mission has shown me that each of you have the potential to be great ninja. Naruto’s the number one ninja for surprising people and Sasuke’s from Konohagakure’s strongest clan.” He finished that line with a look into the mist, where a dark shape was standing.

“So he’s a survivor of that tragedy? No matter, Haku’s never been defeated.” Zabuza spoke from the mist. Kakashi focused in on direction they were hearing it from and put himself in a running stance.

“Sakura, guard.” And once more her sensei disappeared into the mist. Sakura looked back at Tazuna and the two kunai at her feet. Tazuna, who looked so very frightened the poor man, attempted to give her a smile.

“Don’t worry Tazuna-san, we’ll make it out of here in one piece.”

But that was before she felt something that made her flesh want to crawl off her body. Every instinct that she had made her want to flee and hide. It was chakra but it was strange, unnatural much like the chakra she had felt before, but this time there was something malevolent about it. It was if it was broadcasting its intent to her. It didn’t feel _human_.

“W-what is this?” She gasped, looking around for the source. _‘Is this Takehana?’_

The chakra leaked out for a couple of minutes more. Due to the mist, Sakura could only tell what was going on from the sounds emitting pat the mist. At some point there was a crash and then they heard some dreadful snarling and howling.

“Wh-what is that?”

“I don’t know what’s going on, Tazuna-san!” Sakura knees began to shake from the uncertainty and lack of chakra. Even worse, she knew that it had been almost two hours since she administered the poison gas to Gato’s skin. Any minute now it should have started to take his life. But they’d been dragged into battle nonetheless and there was no guarantee Zabuza would stop once Gato was dead.

“Well at least the mist is starting to settle.” And it was. As the mist cleared, two shapes were discernable and as far as Sakura could tell, they were talking to each other.

“Two shinobi are up front, facing each other.”

“Oh? I can’t see very well.”

Sakura strained her eyes to see if she could tell them apart when, quicker than she expected, one of them moved towards the other. A wave of wind blew through the bridge when they collided and Sakura could finally identi-

It looked like something out of a horror manga. Kakashi’s fist, surrounded by a visible and highly charged chakra, was plunging through the kid, with Zabuza trapped by something right behind him. With complete visibility restored, Sakura could see the blood dripped down Kakashi’s arm and down Haku’s mouth.

“My future is death, eh, Kakashi? You were wrong Kakashi.”

Sakura gasped as the dying boy (every second that passed poured more blood out of the boy) held her sensei’s arm in place. Zabuza lifted his weapon and made to slice through the both of them but Kakashi grabbed the body and flipped out of the way before Zabuza’s hit landed.

“YOU BASTARD!”

“Naruto, stay there.” said Kakashi, laying the corpse down and closing Haku’s eyes. Sakura followed her sensei’s gaze to where indeed the orange-wearing boy was.

‘He’s alive!’

“Naaaaaaaruuuto!” She cupped her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice across the bridge.

“Naruto! Where’s Sasuke-kun?”

Naruto didn’t answer. In fact, he shrunk back. Sakura dropped her hands, repeating the question in a normal voice. This time he looked away completely. Sakura felt Kakashi’s worried eyes on her before Zabuza charged at him again and they were once again engrossed in attacking each other.

But Sakura didn’t care for their fight. She kept staring ahead at where Sasuke was supposed to be, her whole body beginning to feel numb.

_‘It can’t. He can’t. I asked them not to...’_

“I’ll go with you so you won’t disobey your sensei’s orders.” Tazuna spoke up. Sakura peeked at him, his hand outstretch and suddenly she felt a wave of fondness for this understanding man. She grasped it and pulled him, bursting off across the bridge. Tazuna made her lag behind for a couple of seconds and he was obviously not in the best shape in the world, but they made it without attracting Zabuza’s attention. They passed Naruto and Sakura spared him half a second of a glance before going on to where Sasuke should have been.

And then she stopped.

_‘No.’_

She remembered telling Takehana of her dreams in the cave, the dream of not being left behind by Sasuke or Naruto, of wanting to protect those two, even if they could both be idiots. She remembered her mother’s pained glances every time she talked about being a ninja, or the sticks of incense they’d light for the dead friends who had been killed in battle. There was Kakashi looking at the KIA memorial. There was the man whose life she’d taken to save one of her comrades. There was Sasuke bleeding as he asked her for help, a genjutsu made to test her in their exam.

And there was Sasuke dead with countless senbon sticking out of his body.

She dropped to her knees and cupped his cheek.

“He’s cold…I guess it’s not an illusion.” Her own voice sounded so small to her.

“You don’t have to hold back because I’m here. It’s alright to cry.”

Sakura just sat, touching Sasuke’s cheek. He would have hated this. Sakura was well aware that Sasuke hated being touched like this. She never knew why. And now she would never find out.

“I aced every exam in the academy. I memorized every ninja rule that was written. I was proud of being able to, even. One day the exam asked for the 25th clause of our rules. I wrote the answer down as usual.” She said, her own voice sounding foreign to her ears.

Tears ran down her cheeks as the events of the day boiled over and she couldn’t hold back anymore.

“It-t was ‘A ninja must never show emotion’. A ninja must have a heart that is hardened to tears.” And she leaned down to cry into Sasuke’s side. Tazuna left her alone for that moment, before shouting a minute later.

“It’s Gato!”

Sakura wiped her tears off her face as she stood up and turned to see where he was pointing. Sure enough, the short repulsive man was here, leaning against a bodyguard.

“Well, well, I must say I’m disappointed Zabuza.”

A crowd of men with weapons shuffled onto the bridge behind him. Sakura immediately took another kunai out.

“Tazuna-san, behind me.”

_‘Did the poison not work?_ ’

But she could see that Gato was leaning on one of his men too closely. The poison caused mobility problems, perhaps that was why….

“I’m sorry, Zabuza, but you’ll die here. You ninja are too damn expensive, even exiled trash like you. And they called you the Demon of the Hidden Mist? Maybe a cute baby devil.” And Gato threw his head back and laughed, his men along with him, until he started going into some sort of coughing fit. The man who was supporting him touched his back.

“Are you alright, Gato-san? Perhaps you should wait on the ship. You really don’t seem to be feeling well today.”

Gato shook his head.

“No, no, I want to see the Baby Devil of the Mist have his head chopped off. Same with Tazuna and all the brats on this damn bridge.” And then he pushed himself off the man and limped to where Haku’s body was. His cane smacked Haku in the face.

“I owe this brat particularly for breaking my wrist and leg. Now I have to find a decent doctor in this shitty country.” Another whack with the cane.

“YOU!” Naruto screamed, running after Gato, only to be pulled back by Kakashi, who shook his head. Agitated, Naruto turned his head to Zabuza, who was looking at Gato.

“Why don’t you say something? He was your comrade!”

“Shut up, kid. Haku’s dead.”

“But don’t you feel anything? You guys were together for years!”

Zabuza sighed, and Sakura noticed the numerous kunai in his arms. He wouldn’t be able to kill all the mercenaries if it came down to it.

“Kid, I said this before. A ninja is a tool. Haku was used by me the same way Gato is using me now. I have no regrets!”

Naruto began shaking his head, even with Kakashi’s grip on him Sakura see that he was seconds away from launching at the nukenin

“You don’t mean that! Haku really cared for you, your dreams were his dreams! And you don’t feel anything...anything?” Naruto’s voice began to crack with sobs.

“How can someone as strong as you think like that?! He gave up everything for you! And he…he died as a tool!”

“Kid…” Zabuza started, his voice breaking. “Just... don’t say anymore. You’re right. Haku was a kind man. He had to kill his heart every time he fought for me. For me. It’s hard for us to be tools, no matter how hard we train.”

“You..”

“Kid, give me you-“

Whatever Zabuza’s request, he didn’t get say it because of a yell from Gato. The short man fell on his back, shaking on the bridge. His ragtag army just eyed him with surprise as their client flopped on the bridge. Kakashi let go of Naruto and jumped to where the man was, Zabuza and Naruto following. Sakura gave Tazuna a look and he nodded, grabbing her hand as they ran across the bridge to where Gato was lying down.

“What’s going on?”

Zabuza chuckled as he stared down at Gato.

“Looks like someone got him before we did. It looks like poison and it’s very strong.”

“Poison?” Naruto repeated.

The army Gato had gathered were arguing amongst themselves, too afraid to go near the ninja and snatch their client up. Sakura and Tazuna had finally made it close enough to see what was going on with Gato and Sakura instantly recoiled from the sight.

It wasn’t just foam this time. The skin was turning an ugly color and looked like it was melting, like it had the same texture as wax. A brownish fluid was leaking out his mouth, followed by more red blood.

“H-help me.” The man gasped weakly. Zabuza shook his head. Gato started coughing and shaking again, flipping over to spew blood out and what looked like…organs….

Sakura trembled. She did this. This was worse, much worse than the man she stabbed. This was painful.

“Machin.” Kakashi said. Sakura’s eyes few in surprise as he correctly named the poison used.

“I thought so too.” Zabuza added. “But it’s rarely used.”

“I know. The corps doesn’t even do immunity training for it anymore.”

Gato was dead, lying in a pool of damaged organs, blood, and brown fluid. Tazuna sighed and scratched his head.

“What a messy death. He probably pissed off the wrong person.”

Kakashi nodded and looked away, turning his face to where Sasuke’s body was. “He’s caused lots of bloodshed, so this just a small dose of karma.”

“Sasuke.” Sakura said quietly, turning away from Gato’s remains and walking back to the body of her fallen teammate. No one stopped her, so she just knelt and touched his hand.

“You had your ambition. I’m sorry Sasuke-kun. I-if I knew who it was, I’d swear my life to putting an end to that person.”

“N-no.” Sasuke’s lips moved and Sakura thought someone had put her in a genjutsu. “You don’t need to…”

“SASUKE-KUN’S ALIVE!” She screamed out, tears flowing freely once more as she embraced Sasuke.

“Sakura, that hurts.” She leaned away from him, but placed her hands over him to stop him from moving.

“Sakura, what happened to the masked kid? And Naruto?”

Sakura gave him a small smile. “Naruto’s alright. And that boy…Haku, he’s dead, he tried to save Zabuza from an attack.”

“I see.” Sasuke struggled to sit up and see what was left of the battlefield.

“Zabuza’s alive, but he’s not fighting us anymore. Gato tried to have him killed but someone poisoned him.” Tazuna added. Sasuke nodded and tried to get up, eventually leaning on Sakura for help doing so.

“Naruto! Sasuke…” The blond boy looked back at them and smiled, with Sasuke raising his hand to wave at the rest of his team.

“Oi! Just because someone killed Gato, doesn’t mean that we’re going to go quietly. You ninja stole our paychecks. We’ll just have to get them from the island!” A mercenary called out.

Zabuza groaned loudly from his spot near Haku’s body. “Fucking mercs!”

Naruto looked around and shrugged. “Don’t either of you have a super cool jutsu that can take care of them?”

“I’m beat kid, and your sensei looks like he’ll fall asleep soon. I’m surprised you’re still up.”

The mercenaries were beginning to charge when an arrow flew at them.

“Hey, listen up! If you try to get closer to this island, we’ll beat you black and blue.” Sakura craned her neck to see a huge amount of the villagers approaching, with Inari at the forefront. Tazuna started laughing and wiping his tears away.

“Did they really? Haha!”

Within a minute, they had about a hundred Narutos and some sickly looking copies of Kakashi to bolster their numbers. The mercenaries took one look at the numbers and fled back to the boat they had gotten to the ship with. As they turned tail and ran, everyone congregated around Kakashi and Naruto, with only Zabuza off to side with Haku’s body.

“Zabuza, what are you planning on doing?” Kakashi asked.

The missing-nin, who had removed the bandages around his mouth, grimaced at them.

“I’ll need to rest up and bury him before going on. Plus, with the weather as it is right now, I don’t think I can get anywhere.” And he pointed up into the sky, where a dark cloud was hanging over the island. Within a minute it was lightly snowing on them.

“Snow?” Tazuna asked. “In this part of April?”

Inari shrugged and looked at his grandfather. “Hey, stranger things have happened.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Haha" translates as "Mommy"


End file.
